Elminster in Hell

[mindworm fades to quiescence, casting commences, magic rising dark and strong]

Blue-white fire raced along the goat-devil's guts, snarling on its swift journey from the grim and trembling human sorceress to the fallen, thrashing devil.

'Where is he, devil?' the Simbul snapped. Death reached for the Lord of Bones. 'What have you done with my man?'

Puzzlement joined rage in the horned devil's eyes. It leveled a shuddering arm to point at her and unleash a last, desperate magic. The harsh word it said next was the beginning of an incantation, not an answer… but then her blood spell reached Harhoring.

The explosion tore the horned devil apart, huge shoulders and all, drenching rocks all around.The Simbul stood, coated in dark ichor. Gore spattered down in a grisly rain that drowned out the sound of her sigh. The trace had laded. She was alone once more. Elminster was gone again, snatched away elsewhere in Avernus.

'Someone wants a lot of devils slain,' she said aloud, wearily. 'Surely there are more efficient ways of doing that than throwing a lone human mage at them. Even this one.'

She looked down at her blood-drenched limbs. A few tiny fragments of armor were still whirling around them. The Simbul shook her head. With a careful spell she transformed the shards into dark wings.The slower way would have to suffice for the rest of this manhunt if her dwindling magic was to see her through another fray.

'Time for Hell to tremble a little more,' she murmured and leaped into the blood-red sky.

***

Fiery eyes narrowed. 'Saw you that?' a harsh voice rumbled.

'Aye,' the nearest pit fiend said.'Another incursion that's more than it seems. No human sorceress should have been able to slay Orochal, let alone Tasnya the wanton and as deadly a hunter as Harhoring. Three gone to the flames where none should have fallen.'

'Indeed. Whelm our troops. Let there be fire in Avernus- and this human intruder writhing and pleading on my cooking-spit in its midst.'

***

'At your dread command,' the pit fiend said, bowing its head. It took wing in ungainly, flapping haste. Good sport was not so common in Hell as to be willingly missed.

A ball of flames gouted up from a brazier, with a roar as sudden and sharp as a gong. Horned heads turned.

'Saw you?' asked a deep voice that made the floor tremble with its force, and the listeners with their fear.

'Aye, Dread Lord,' they hissed, more or less in chorus, reluctant and anxious.

'To arms,' the voice said simply. 'Fail me not.'

Flames rolled up from the brazier more fiercely than ever before.There was a sudden tumult as devils scrambled to leave that trembling place.

***

Well, well. Your witch-queen has snared more than a little attention in hell among the deep and powerful hosts wheimed, mighty magic taken out of hiding, nergal happy…

Pet humans once more of service, hmm?

Cleverness, cleverness! Always I'm treated to elminster being witty, elminster making mocking pronouncements, elminster saving the day with a sneer for the dolts he deals with! I could wrench you to bloody pulp in an instant, flames take you.'

And yet ye don't. Why?

Because no other devil in heu. Has a human in his hands who personali.y serves a goddess and holds any trifling measure of her power. Some deviis cajole or threaten or influence morals outside heu, but you're mine, body and mind. Obviously powerful and wise, and potentially very useful and yet i can't manage to learn anything useful from you. Yet.

And-?

and I won'twait much longer. You wiu yield m me, or die

AS HORRIBLY AS I CAN CONTRIVE. that is, if malachlabra doesn't get you first.

[unvoiced human query, mental eyebrow raised]

On, yes. she survived our uttle battle over you, it seems,

BUT HAS GOING INTO HIDING FOR FEAR OF Nl-RGAL THE MlGHTY… SO IT'S ONLY FfTTING THAT I GO TO HER. OR RATHER, SEND HER TWO LITTLE GIFTS. YOU AND YOUR AVENGING IADY LOVE.

[rising bellow of diabolic laughter]

Chapter Nineteen

RAGE IN HELL

The chaos of stagnant pools and jagged rocks around the pool of blood was alive with crawling maggots.Those rocks were also home to something else, something broken and shapeless, scorched dark, something that might have answered to the name Elminster if it had possessed a jaw to do so. He dared heal himself only very slowly. Maggots sucked and gnawed at him hungrily where he lay, motion-' less in the deep shadows.

The dark thing splashing in the pool hadn't noticed Elminster's arrival. She was too busy spinning a spell of her own.

It was a hovering sphere of bright, shifting glows and little chimings. In its depths, dark shapes quavered and broke, roiling like smoke.

Its crafter hissed in annoyance. She frowned, feeding it more power through her long, hooked talons. 'Work for Malachlabra,' she breathed fiercely, peering into the depths. 'Show me the human wizard-not my own cavern!'

A rumbling sound echoed down stony passages to the pool. Anger kindled like red flames in ale-brown eyes. Malachlabra lifted her head and stared hard down the passage she'd used to reach this secret place--The passage was strewn with the gnawed bones of the dragon who'd dared to think it owned a fine lair here.

The sound faded and came not again. With a growl the daughter of Dispater rolled over in the smoking blood of the pool and reclined on her belly, idly slapping the gore into little waves with her three serpent tails. She stared even j more intently into the depths of her spell-spun sphere.

Shadows swirled in the heart of the sphere. Once more I it shaped jagged rocks and steaming blood-water, with a | long, sinuous obsidian form lying at ease in the pool, peering into-

The magic burst in a shower of sparks, as all such weav-ings do when turned to look directly upon themselves. Malachlabra, Duchess of Hell and daughter of Dispater, reared back with a snarl.

'Are my spells so feeble? Or is there something here, twisting my magic? The sphere of seeing has always worked before!'

Bat wings flared once as she stretched restlessly. Sleek | obsidian flesh reared up from the hot blood of the pool. The thick red liquid dripped from high breasts, and ran down the curves where serpent-tails met in a wide pelvis. Malachlabra had the body of a lush human female, '| though for a woman, her snakelike, undulating neck would have been grotesquely long. The two horns curving up from her temples looked anything but human. Her