Standing in her own familiar spell chamber, naked and filthy, bereft of apprentice and much magic, Laeral of Loudwater smiled wryly.
'Of Art gain great sight, wise beyond any mage,' the verse had run. It had spoken truth; she'd gained great sight, indeed-of what unchecked power and fanatical mastery of Art did to archmages.
Laeral sighed and carelessly tossed her bundle (what was left of her robes, tied as a sack around the scraps of magic she'd scavenged) across the room.
Right now, the most important goal of her life lay downstairs, at the bottom of her garden: the stream where she could wash off the dust, din, bone splinters, and the gods-alone-knew-what-else was caked all over her, stuck to Thalon's gluelike anmdoon sauce.
Laeral went down the stairs to the landing where her cloaks hung. She brushed past them to a littered desk whose pigeonholes held dusty scrolls written years before. She took out one she'd never expected to need and read it as she went slowly down another flight of stairs to the garden door.
The scroll melted away between her fingertips, and the dancing lights it conjured gave Laeral light enough to bathe by. She whispered the word that unlocked the door and went out into the night with a decanter of wine to wash away the oily sauce. Cradling it she dove headlong into the stream.
She'd have to find another apprentice tomorrow… where was that list Orliph of the Harpers had left her? There'd been a good dozen names on it, some of them interesting.
Oh, yes. She snapped her fingers, and out of the night sky above her a scroll arrowed down, unfolded itself gracefully above her nose, and angled itself to catch the radiance of the gently drifting globes of light around her.
Laeral scrubbed and stretched in the cool water, making small murmuring sounds of contentment as the stickiness left her. Tossing back her wet hair, she peered at the list.
Cold fear made its slow way up her spine, crawling like one of the bony claws of the archmage's tower. The list had held almost twenty names, she was sure. Now there was only one, written in flowing, darkly bold and fresh script: 'Thalon.'
Laeral curled her lip. Enough. That throne was going to have to go. Tomorrow.
[images drifting, then flashing up and aside, flung away in the drive to go deeper…]
***
The abishai squatted on the sharp-spiked rocks that ringed the hollow, guarding the whorlspell.This one had not whirled and spit for long.The banners on their spears, proclaiming this hollow the territory of Great Tiamat the Many-Headed, were still new. Most of the abishai faced outward, glaring across the smoking ridges in a search for the trouble they knew would come. Only a few of the largest, eldest redhides amongst them looked inward, at the spinning chaos of the whorlspell.
The 'eyes of Hell,' some called them.They were, in truth, more like blindly snatching claws, scooping up creatures, gems, things of magic, water, or whatever the devil slain in the spell casting had desired most. Whorlspells grabbed things from far worlds and spewed them into Hell. They fed Avernus and gave it a constant source of entertainment- and problems. Magics unheard-of and undefended against came through all too often, and betimes creatures that could slay as easily as they were slain…
This one had been sporadically spewing forth bleating, wild-eyed sheep and wet, shining fish ever since its discovery. The former were easily neck-wrung ere they could scramble away, though the guardians let the occasional one run about for a little sport. This wasn't going to be one of those whorls that spewed forth crumbling stone, all manner of strange decaying things, and lots of magic that had to be warily watched.
Some of the redhides almost desired a little danger. Even gutting sheep in ever-more cruel ways loses its delight after a while.
They were not expecting the whorl to spit a bright comet of blue-white flame into the air-still less, at the head of it, a human female with eyes like two black coals and hair like silver flame.
The Simbul knew her wands-sticks of wood, after all, amid the searing smoke and wandering fireballs of Avernus-wouldn't last long. She snatched and fired, snatched and fired, in a bright spellweb that left each weapon floating and spitting death after she'd let go of it to snatch another. Abishai exploded into shreds and gobbets before the guardians of the whorl knew what it had brought them. Their slayer was away, flying low across the trembling, rocky ground in a conjured shroud of smoke. Behind her, abishai remains began to spatter back down on the rocks amid the flaming remnants of a few banners.
[wordless reply, warning of being devil-ridden, diabolic awareness catching fire and sweeping around to look, contact broken]
Somewhere in that direction! Stealth was for others. Even the Simbul would find the whelmed armies of Hell a little warm for her liking. After all, she was but an ember blown from the inferno that was Mystra, and even the Lady had been forced to retreat. Strike swift and hard was both the Simbul's best road and the one that suited her.
Balls of flame flashed and arced in the distance, bright sparks against a red and starless sky. Something that might have been a dragon fluttered clumsily down behind one peak as she shot a glance in its direction.
The ground fell away into a vast, sharp-walled chasm. Into that gorge, spinagons flew as last as their tattered wings could bear them, fleeing a hunting pack of black abishai.
Sinuous tails snaked, wings beat, and talons snatched. The Simbul crashed through the heart of them without slowing, blasting anything in her path into writhing, cartwheeling agony. The wake of seared and sizzling fiends was promptly torn apart by other devils.
The vinegar tang of abishai bodies and the sulfurous reek of devil-blood were strong around her as she stormed up and over a line of clawlike crags. larger devils stood on a pinnacle above the tortured land-tall and terrible baatezu with their folded bat-wings arching high above diem. They took wing as they saw her, grinning and hooting in anticipation. The mightiest of them surged to make the first and most satisfying strike against her.
The Witch-Queen never slowed, racing on as the pit fiend soared to meet her. Its great wings blotted out the sky ahead.
Its mighty arms spread, and its fangs bared in delighted laughter. She hurled a spell in front of her-a bright burst of lightning that raked its chest like the tails of a whip- and let it bellow mirth at her feeble magic.
It was still laughing when the claws of her will tore it apart, flinging its jawbone into the face of one startled cor-nugon and its skull into the snarling maw of another.
'I'd love to stay' the Simbul snarled to the winds as she plunged on, the hot blood of her foe settling on her in a stinging cloud, 'but I'm busy just now. Perhaps another time… soon.'
She sent forth another mind-touch… and found both her beloved and the dark fury of an archdevil awaiting her. She broke the contact before his mind bolt could do more than leap toward her. Twisting in the air, the Simbul flung herself over on her back in a sharp turn that would bring her to where Elminster was being held.
If she tore through the smoking stink of Hell just a little faster, she might even reach him in time…
***
Nergal broke his hold on Elminster's mind, leaving his captive to blink and whimper in the sudden din and reek of Avernus. He lifted his head to peer across the blood-red sky.
'She comes' he snarled, 'and Orochal didn't even slow her. What manner of woman d'you lie with, wizard, that she can tear apart pit fiends without even slowing?'
The wormlike thing that was Elminster made no reply but a wet, bubbling moan. Nergal glared down at it for a moment, and then back up at a small darkness that was streaking across the sky, racing nearer… and
