Elminster in Hell

There are ragged cheers as he plummets, but they become shouts of alarm ere he reaches the ground. That landing will come somewhere else.

The ring on his finger has done its work. His very bones are rubber! His skin itches, his body feels wet and empty and sick… and it's flowing, changing as he struggles for breath. He watches the ground and the scum- cloaked water hurl itself up to meet him….

Less than the height of a man away from smashing into that water, the black-robed body becomes a black star. The burst of dark radiance freezes for a moment. The watching crowds murmur. It drifts sideways in the breeze ere it winks out and is gone….

***

Black, stinking pools bubble with sulfurous stinks. Cruel wasps alight on the heads of submerged, spellbound captives and thrust home their long stingers, trading venom for blood. The thrashing, foaming victims drown.

A sudden whirlpool pierces those waters. It turns up gigantic ribcages black with slime, and odd-shaped, unidentified things that are flung far and wide from the muck. At the heart of that whirlpool rises a cloud of red and black. It spins swiftly at first and then more slowly, to stand at last, revealed as-

'Malachlabra, Duchess of Hell and daughter of Dispater,' murmured the watching Tasnya. She banished her scrying image with a lazy wave of her hand before the.' distant serpent-devil would have a chance to feel her scrutiny. 'You are such a headstrong fool. Almost as bad as Nergal.'

She gave her own cleverness a crooked smile and rolled over again to bite out the throat of an erinyes. As the others whimpered and shrank away from the gore-filled bed, the imps hovering above Tasnya never paused in their work, flogging her just the way she'd commanded, with the little barbed whips she'd fashioned. By the Nine, but she loved pain.

***

Again you try to dupe me, human! Just now stupid do you think i am?

[silence]

Yes, you'd better keep silent, about now. Fire and blood, how have you ever found anything in this wallow-pit you call a mind? Every link has a side trail, every memory two ok three overlapping it, and you dance in front of me like a little yapping imp, thrusting one thing into my face when i seek another! When i've got your secrets at last, i'm going to take great pleasure in your slow, painful death. I'm going to tear tender organs off you and out of you that you never knew you had!

[silence tinged with weary amusement]

Yes, i know you sneer at devils for their unsubtle cruelties, little human worm, but creatures can't sneer when they're too busy screaming…. You'll discover that too! Now, i want to see more memories-so get on with it!

Steaming bowls of soup sat on the weathered kitchen table before them. Hot tankards of cider stood to one side. The two silver-haired women ignored both in favor of chuckling over the latest 'Heattsteel' novel out of Sembia.

' 'Eyes flashing,' ' a voice on the tremulous edge of helpless laughter announced unsteadily to the world, ' 'she flung dweomers that flashed brightly at the otherworldly apparition….' '

The other woman groaned in derisive disgust and fell into helpless gales of laughter a breath behind her sister.

Storm, who held both the book and the current title of Reader Aloud to the Assembled, mastered her mirth first. Tossing long hair back out of her eyes, she eyed her sister's shaking shoulders and said gruffly, 'None of that laughing, now-we've an epic to finish!'

' 'A bodice-throbbing saga of broken hearts and blazing spells!' ' Sylune quoted with a fresh whoop of laughter. 'Wherein boldly thrusting blades strike at the heart of evil, smiting aside chastity belts in the way!'

Storm looked up at her. 'It doesn't say that,' she! protested mildly, her own lips trembling on the edge of laughter. 'It says 'along the way,' I'm sure.' She did not bother to flip the book over to check.

Sylune descended into a fresh fit of giggles, buried her face in her hands, and waved at Storm to read on.

Storm gave her a dubious look, adjusted the ornate and rimless spectacles lower along her nose they went within the post of Reader Aloud, for reasons both of them had forgotten some centuries ago, and cleared her throat loudly. '

Sylune obediently sat up, eyes streaming, and stared at the ceiling to avoid meeting Storm's eyes.

Storm gave her an amused look, and then raised the;, book once more and resumed the tale. ' 'The gallant, I rippling-muscled blue-black steed neighed as loudly as a temple bell as the knight in shining armor hurtled bravely down out of the balcony, tumbling through the crossbeams with sounds like unto an entire armory crashing into the same midden-pit, and slammed into his place in the high-cantled saddle-but facing backward. The clangor of tortured metal and the scream of the tortured knight that quite outsang it, startled the faithful war charger even more than the sudden heavy weight on its back, and it reared-almost spilling Sir Taen from his seat once more-and then galloped wildly down the length of the bedchamber. The startled princess sat up in bed just in time to see-' '

'Oh, stop!' Sylune sobbed, howling. Her rocking-chairl creaked as its pace quickened into a near-canter; Storml watched with amusement as it commenced to walk across! the floor, bringing the ribs of Sylune’s new body hard against the edge of the table.

Her laughter never faltered-even when the chair tipped forward and Sylune's chin came down on the spoon with a clatter. It soared toward the rafters, and Storm waited for it to come down again, fielded it with deft hand, and asked, 'Could you kindly refrain from hurling the cutlery? We're not dining at a royal table, you know!'

Sylune's laughter redoubled. She threw herself backward, chair and all. Not surprisingly, the rocker took this as a signal to rock. Violently.

Storm rolled her eyes, sighed, and told her farmhouse ceiling, 'It's not much to ask, but it might just be too much to ask… if you take my meaning.'

The ceiling evidently did. Something small and light fluttered down from somewhere amid its loftier, dustier beams, dislodged in all the hubbub. Storm caught it and raised her palm to stare at it: a folded paper jumping frog that one of her Harper trainees had made three summers ago. He'd obviously flicked it aloft before leaving.

As Storm regarded the clever little thing, her mirth gave way to sadness. She'd buried that Harper's gnawed bones in the Teshen backlands last winter; this little frog was all that was left of him now.

'Sister,' Sylune murmured, bereft of all humor, 'I must go-Alustriel can tell you why!'

Storm lifted her head from the frog to stare at her older sister. Sylune's head lolled, drooling and empty-eyed- before she pitched face-forward into the soup.

Storm stretched out a long arm to grab a good handful of hair, muttering too late, 'Not in my soup, you don't!'

She hauled the body back into a sitting position and set down the frog as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Then she sighed and took up her discarded apron to wipe the soup from Sylune’s vacant face. Lifting her sister's discarded body up in her arms as if it weighed nothing, she gently carried it upstairs to a bed.

The Bard of Shadowdale looked down, sighed, and! arranged the lifeless hands to clasp the Heartsteel novel to the still breast, in case she wasn't around when..' Sylune returned.

Then she went downstairs and outside, to look across the dale she loved. She plucked up her tankard of cider along the way and wondering how long it would be, this time, before she too was called to war….

No! No! Moke time wasting! Beautiful humans, but what interest have i in such? Magic i want, curse you, human! How can you still defy me? How?

[growling, firmly quelled]

No, i'll not tear and snarl i'll dive into your mind one more, and this time seek beings you respect