Elminster in Hell

In Avernus, the black flames that had been Nergal died down.A lemure sniffed and flowed hungrily toward the smell.The fury that had blazed here, scorching rocks that had been scorched so many times before, was spent. For now.

Chapter Twenty-Four

BRIEF EXCITEMENT IN AGLAROND

'May I present,' the Masked One said in amused tones, handing the lovely gowned lady forward with a flourish, 'ThorneiraThalance, now Acting Crown Regal of Aglarond.'

Phaeldara looked up from the throne. 'Not for another three breaths, she isn't.And didn't the Crowned Fury say to just call ourselves regent now, and abandon all these titles that give envoys and heralds such fits?'

'That's why I do it,' the Masked One replied with a chuckle.'Three breaths, my right haunch! You should have been up off there at least two breaths ago!'

The courtiers and envoys ranged along the walls leaned closer so as not to miss a moment or nuance of merriment.

Phaeldara rose, tall and elegant, and said plaintively to Evenyl, who sat on a lounge floating nearby, 'Was ever a woman so wronged?'

The fourth sometime-regent looked up with an innocent smile and held up her hand with fingers spread to use for counting items off. 'Oh, let me think.There was-'

A flash and rumble shook the throne room. The regals whirled around as courtiers gasped and murmured along the walls. They all fell silent at what they saw.

The Witch-Queen of Aglarond stood in the center of the chamber, as naked as the day she was born-naked, battered, and entwined.

Her hair swirled and writhed around her shoulders as if it were alive as she glared around the room. Her eyes were two dark and deadly stars. If wearing nothing but smears of soot and dung and blood bothered her, she showed no sign of it.

Her arms were around the waist of a bony, bearded, filth-covered old man with stumps where his forearms should have been. He was sagging, bent over limply like a child's broken doll; it was clear only her grip kept him from falling. Firmly she caught hold of his hair and laid his head back over her shoulder. Then she smiled down the room into the astonished faces of the regals.

'To coin a phrase,' the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said dryly, 'We're back.'

As if in reply, explosions of black-tinged fire burst into roiling existence behind her, amid shrieks from the watching courtiers. A brimstone reek filled the room. Grinning devils strode forth from the flames, long-horned and bat-winged, tusked and terrible. Their talons stretched out to snatch the Simbul and the man in her arms.

'Geryon, Overduke of Hell, sends us,' one of them said smugly, 'to fetch you back to your deaths-in long, long torment!'

The Simbul whispered a word. Lightning raged from the tiles under the devils' hooves to the ceiling high above and back again.There were faint cries-then nothing but empty tiles and the oily smoke of diabolic bodies collapsing.

The Witch-Queen smiled through those remnants.

Another rank of devils emerged from the flames. They wore rather smaller smiles.

'Did you really believe seizing me in my own lair was going to be easy? Here I stand not alone.'

A tongue of blue-white flame leaped up from her empty hand. Behind her the regals, with set, determined faces, held out their own hands to cup more feeble blue flames.

'Neither, witch,' said a courtier loudly, lifting his own hand and letting swirling magic fill it,'do they!'

'Aye,' said another, farther down the hall, throwing aside his cloak. 'For Thay!'

'Yes,' came a third voice, hard and cold. 'Let the queen and Aglarond fall together, for the greater glory of Thay!'

Eyes blazing, an old courtier snatched a dagger from his belt and thrust it into the throat of the revealed Red Wizard beside him.The room erupted in shouts and spells.

The doors by the throne burst open. Thaergar of the Doors strode in with a bright new sword drawn. He stared open-mouthed at the tumult, then snatched and hurled a dagger from his belt-straight back out the door at the alarm gong.

He charged forward, raising his blade. Red flames burst out of the air in front of him, hurling him to the floor. He glared up at that dark magic in time to see a huge, ruby-red devil stride out of it, fork in one hand and barbed whip in the other, to loom over Phaeldara, foremost of the regals.

'Pretty meat,' it gloated, reaching for her.

Thaergar of the Doors and Phaeldara stared at the pit fiend, the Red Wizards and charging devils beyond, and deadly magics singing and snarling everywhere.

'Oh, dung' they gasped in unintentional unison.

***

The air above a table commenced to shimmer. Tiny silver and blue sparks whirled out of thin air to race around each other in a small, tight sphere.

Their radiance made a head snap up, and two eyes glared at them in astonishment and alarm.

A moment later, a chair went over with a crash. The man who'd been sitting in it crossed the room with surprising speed for someone of his age. He snatched down two crossed, rusty daggers from beneath a shield on the wall. In his hands they twisted and became a wand and a scepter. Pointing them both at the whirling lights, the Royal Magician of Cormyr snarled, 'How, by all the whims of Holy Mystra, did that get through the wards? And what is it?'

In obliging answer, the whirling lights sank a little and unfolded themselves downward to the floor in a cascade of silver. They formed a wraithlike figure: a female elf of tiny, nigh-perfect beauty, who looked perhaps nine years old-except for her eyes, which were as old and wise as those of a goddess… or at least a Chosen who has seen many centuries.

Vangerdahast lowered his wand and scepter. 'Who… are you?' he asked hoarsely.

'Most call me the Srinshee,' she replied. 'You and I are both needed, right now, in the throneroom of Aglarond.'

'Aglarond? Why?'

'Elminster is there, embattled and in urgent need of us both-and Mystra bids us come,' she said simply, and held out her hand.

Vangerdahast stared at her for a moment. An almost fierce joy flashed across his face. He ran across the room like an eager young man. 'Yes!' he snarled, eyes bright. 'Oh, yes!”

***

Men shouted, ran, and snatched out swords in the throneroom of Aglarond. Spells crashed and devils pounced.They also reeled, screamed, and died.

Blistering fire burst among shrieking courtiers. Men who'd been enthusiastically plunging daggers into a Red Wizard vanished into crackling columns of ash.

Among the terrified sprinting and shoving, a serving-maid let fall her silver tray with a crash as a devil's talons clawed at her bodice. Thrusting a slender arm, she drove her hand right through the grinning pit fiend. It vanished with a roar of blue flames and a terrified shriek.

A Red Wizard stared at the maid in astonishment as she reached for the next nearest devil, her eyes aglow,