Elminster in Hell

Laeral chuckled. 'Including your own, ah, moonlit lady-walks on Wychmoon Hill?'

Blaskyn colored, looked at her silently for a moment, and grinned again. 'Speaking of which,' he added thoughtfully, a moment later, 'doesn't the verse about the throne speak of not 'sitting alone'?'

Laeral shook her head. 'No, Master Blaskyn. You're not coming. Not this time, at least.' She went to a dark suit of plate armor that stood against a wall. Had it not been so covered with dust, it would have looked quite menacing.

'I need you here,' Laeral said, tugging the heavy helm off the stand and turning to offer it to him. 'Here, looking after my affairs in the village, and gathering news.' She thrust the rather plain old war-helm into his hands. Blaskyn looked down at it and then up at her, brow raised in silent query.

'The Helm of Hiding,' Laeral told him. 'The rest of the armor is simply so much shaped metal.' (This was not strictly true, but no mage ever surrenders all her secrets willingly.) 'It hides you from searching magic, and all Art prying into the mind. At will, you can cloak

1 yourself in shadows and escape most searching eyes. Use it if powerful foes come to call. If you value your life and Art, Blaskyn, hide-don't challenge! The spell-books you've been shown are yours to use freely. The others, you will not find.'

Blaskyn smiled and nodded. 'Of course. I'll have things enough to try with what you've made available; you needn't fear I'll go rummaging through the tower the moment you're out the door. Or later, for that matter.' He cocked his head to look at the ceiling again. 'So long as I spell-lock the upper doors, may I have visitors-ones who aren't adept at Art?'

Laeral wrinkled her nose. 'One at a time, I hope. And no drunken feasts-in a house of magic, the results can be fatal as well as spectacular.'

Blaskyn nodded again, all traces of levity gone. 'I ask again, Lady: Are you sure you should go alone?'

Laeral laughed. 'I won't be alone. I'll have this.' She took up the rod that lay on the cushion beside her seat. 'This is die most precious of my things. It goes always with me.'

Blaskyn shook his head. 'It was you who told me,' he reminded her, 'that a mage who trusts in the magic of items trusts himself too much.'

Laeral returned his gaze, and answered gently, 'Trust not too much in your own magic while I'm gone, Blaskyn. Guard your words and deeds carefully, for Art alone will not carry you through all the dangers of life.'

'Another maxim?' Blaskyn sighed. 'You'd better go, before I fall asleep.'

Laeral gave him one of her looks. She unrolled the scroll that would teleport her to a hill she knew, where the River Dessarin flowed out of the High Forest. 'I don't plan to be gone long,' she added.

Blaskyn grinned. 'Lost is the wizard who depends on plans, for the whims of the gods twist them always awry,' he chanted the old maxim at her triumphantly.

Laeral gave him another choice look just before she disappeared.

Hmmph. Now I'm being fed human philosophy. This had better be worth the attention, little mage.

Aye.

'Aye'? Is that all you have to say? Could the great elmlnster the mighty be running out of cleverness at last?

As to that, we'll see.

[dark look from flaming red eyes, wary pincers stealing forth]

If this is some sort of trick…

[silence, images deftly unfolding]

In the gathering twilight, the ruined tower rose out of i dark encircling trees like the black blade of an upright sword. Laeral eyed it critically and cast another spell. Once it cloaked her, she went forward to the tumbled, overgrown pillars that had once marked the gate of a courtyard.

Within, gnarled, twisted tree roots thrust aside the paving slabs. No birds sang in the branches, and the feeling of waiting death was strong. Her Art told her no magic waited close by-but if a hidden beast still guarded the keep in the traditional wizards' way, it would be about here.

The moss-covered boulder just inside the gate rose with menacing speed. Laeral used the flight spell she'd just cast to propel her away, soaring up and back to hover in midair.

As earth fell away, the rising rock opened eyes and regarded her with a look that was unsurprised but rather weary. It was a human-shaped head with beautiful female features of a green-gray hue and was as tall as she. The head swayed atop a massive serpentine body. A naga.

'So young and so pretty,' it said. 'Come ye here, maiden, but to die?'

'That is not my intent,' Laeral replied calmly, preparing to move quickly. 'Who set thee here, and what is thy purpose against me or my entry?'

'Thalon set me to guard this place and, by my powers, to slay all who cannot use Art to avoid me,' the deadly guardian replied. Its eyes flickered.

The bolt that leaped from its mouth was too fast for the mage to avoid entirely. Protective Art flashed as it crackled along her flank. Laeral wasted no Art in battle but extended her aerial dodge into a twisting, darting dive toward the dark, waiting windows of the tower beyond.

Behind her, the naga hissed sadly, 'Ye will not find what ye expect to, when ye reach the throne.' By its tone, it seemed to like her.

The mage scarcely had time to be surprised at that. She cautiously slowed her approach to the nearest arched window but struck a solid barrier of invisible force, hard.

Had she been flying a little faster, Laeral thought as she tumbled away through the air, she'd have broken her neck. Bruised, she rose again cautiously and approached the next darkly gaping window… then another. Before all of them were barriers-barriers her detection spell did not show. They were there nonetheless. The lone exception flared with such a bright aura of magic that Laeral suspected the traps it held would outnumber even a handful of dispellings.

She settled cautiously to the ground and approached the lone doorway of the tower. It stood open, dark and waiting, its doors fallen. There was no magic about it that her spells could find.

Time to play the hero, Laeral told herself. Unbidden, the next line of the ballad came to mind: Time to play the fool. Sighing, she stepped forward into darkness.

Dust swirled within; dust clung to cobwebs all about. All was dark and cold and still. Laeral gently took flight again, her feet treading air inches above the dusty stones. If Tymora smiled, she'd be safer that way.

Softly glowing motes of light kept Laeral company. She floated slowly and carefully from room to room of the tower. In one lay a gigantic stone block, fallen from the ceiling. The shattered, yellowed bones of a human skeleton protruded from under one corner. Its arms reached vainly, its jaw open in an eternal silent scream, Laeral floated over it in wary silence.

A little farther, as expected, there was a pit. More skeletons lay below, twisted and broken on dust-covered spikes-the death she had expected. Warily she advanced, wondering when she'd find the traps against those who flew.

All too soon she saw a spray of quarrels, projecting like the stems of some sort of thorny plant from one side of a dark wooden archway ahead. The skeleton among them still had scraps of dark brown sinew dangling from it.

Laeral halted before the arch and unclasped her cloak. Floating in the air, she swirled it forward.

There was a dull snapping sound. A quarrel leaped from a hidden fissure and tore through its folds to join the cluster in the arch, quivering.

Laeral swung the torn cloth again, but no more quarrels came. Rolling the cloak around her forearms as a sort of shield, she darted through the arch, diving low and to the side.

The rusty blade that squealed across the top of the arch missed her entirely.

Laeral sighed again. She wondered when she'd run into the trap that would try to strip any magic items she'd brought. Unfortunately, traps one knows about kill just as effectively as the unknown sort. At least, Laeral thought wryly, I haven't run out of maxims yet.