Elminster in Hell

Bah! Weepy sentiment everywhere! This human's wits are addled-addled! What sort of fool lives his live wrapped in love of others?

The human sort of fool, Nergal. It's what we are, just as ye are the creature of Hell ye are.

Grrrr! Fall silent, captive ward!

They were suddenly elsewhere-a dark and cold elsewhere, with dust rising around them and the smell of stone strong in their nostrils. Underground.

Piergeiron slapped his armor, startling his daughter rigid, and willed it to come alight. It awakened in a pale blue glow.

By its radiance and Laeral's glowfire they could see they were standing in a high-ceilinged hall that looked empty but for the drifting dust. Many dark archways marked led to passages that ran off into gloom.

The radiance coming from Laeral's hands flared to almost blinding brightness. The Lady Mage of Waterdeep reached up to touch Piergeiron's head.

He gasped, shuddered, and stumbled away from her.

Laeral reeled and sank down to her knees. Aleena bent to catch hold of her, but Asper was swifter.

"Lady?" she asked quietly.

"I'll be fine," Laeral said calmly. "Piergeiron needs to be hale and whole right now, and I've made him so. I'll just be a little weak for awhile."

"Aleena," Asper said, "stay with her. Guard her-and if anyone wearing a mask comes anywhere near, scream your head off."

Piergeiron's daughter looked at Mirt, Elminster, and her father, collected their nods of assent, and knelt down by Laeral with an audible sigh of relief.

Mirt slapped Piergeiron's chest gently. He rumbled, "You know where we are, don't you?"

Piergeiron was staring at a coat of arms carved over a nearby archway, "I think so," he replied quietly, "and I tegin to suspect why."

He drew breath to say more-but Storm's long, raw scream came echoing down to them from somewhere far beyond the arch.

Asper, as always, moved first, racing like a dark wind through the archway. Piergeiron soon caught her up, his consecrated blade glimmering as he willed it to shine. Elminster sprinted along close at hand, leaving behind the puffing and astonished Mirt.

Along a passage they ran, then through two chambers of cobwebs and dust, and a third where a lone, scuttling spider fled their furious approach. In the fourth, light shone amid vaulted pillars, casting forth the shadows of two dark, struggling figures in leather. One was masked. His sword, glistening with blood, stood out of Storm's back. Impaled, she was struggling forward in agony, trying to reach him.

The masked man saw the new arrivals and raised his other hand. The many-hued flames of a ready spell were racing around it.

"Sssambranath," he said clearly and carefully, the first word of an incantation that would define what part of the chamber erupted in a racing storm of lightning bolts. "Naerth-"

His incantation broke off as Storm spat blood into his face, making him choke. The hilt of his blade was almost against her breast, now, and she clawed weakly at his masked face. He shook his head violently, ducking away from her as much as he could without letting go of his sword-but his spell was ruined.

No such misfortune befell Elminster. Swinging around a pillar to a panting stop, the Old Mage caught his breath and cast a careful spell. The room suddenly fell shimmering and silent.

Striding past where Asper was frozen in midleap, the Old Mage reached the two bodies joined by steel. He cast another spell with the same fussy care, touched Storm Silverhand to visit its effects on her, and gently took hold of her shoulders and tugged.

Wetly, she slid back along the masked man's sword, her eyes unseeing and her face twisted in pain. Elminster kept on pulling, wincing at the feel of the steel sliding out of her.

The longer he kept this ancient Illuskan spell going, the more pain he would feel. Yet it could be nothing compared with what Storm must be suffering. He'd sent her into this-the most rebellious of the three lasses he'd raised as his daughters, albeit centuries ago.

Gods above, but he'd forgotten just how much this could hurt.

The Old Mage set his teeth and dragged the Bard of Shadowdale a few unsteady, trudging steps farther, past the statue that his spell had made of Mirt. The Old Wolf was frozen in midstride, arms swung wide for balance and drawn steel in both hands.

Elminster knelt beyond him, wrestling with a snarl against the rising surges of agony that made his hands tremble. Mystra, how many times had he done this for this lass? And she for him? On her riven breast, he carefully laid out what he'd need for the healing spell. When he was done, teeth chattering with pain, he banished the spell.

At once the world was all loud, racing movement again. The pain was abruptly gone. For him.

El let Storm half-crush his hand in her own as she stared up at him, agony like fire in her eyes. Then he drew a deep breath and drowned out her scream with an iron command of his own. As Asper, Piergeiron, and Mirt charged at the masked man, the Old Mage's voice rang out over them like a battle trumpet: "Don't kill him. Yet."

Fires of Nessus. A room full of clever-tongued humans! Do i get to see them die?

No, but ye get to bear their talk of powerful magic- and I do mean powerful.

Ah! About avernus-freezing over time!

Helpless the man hung in the air above them, masked no longer. Spread-eagled and furious, frozen in the grip of Eiminster's spells, he was ru

That seemed almost fair, because fewer and fewer questions were occurring to those below. His answers thus far-most given proudly-revealed him to be Amril Zoar, of the noble family exiled from Waterdeep long, long ago. He'd armed himself to destroy all the lords of the city with the spells and an enchanted sword he'd gained from a man who bore a silver harp badge, and he wondered how to reach them ere they gathered together to hunt him down.

For years he'd schemed and brooded until by chance his spies found a book. It turned out to be a lost tome of Ahghairon, the "Founder of Waterdeep," that detailed how to create "ring of fire" gates. These short-lived gates were but echoes of certain ancient, long-hidden portals moved into the cellars of early Waterdeep by Halaster Blackcloak. Echo gates could be created only within a short distance of the ancient portals, but-Mirt's eyes gleamed at this news-they could bypass many modern barriers and defensive enchantments. Once a master of echo gates, Amril had taken his tutor's harp badge as his own and begun slaying lords of Waterdeep.

Mirt peered up at the floating man and said grimly, “Right. Enough. Kill him. We can spell-talk to his corpse about his kin and kill them, too."

"No!" a voice rapped out from behind him. Storm's face was pale, but she strode forward as swiftly and smoothly as if she'd never felt the bite of cold steel. "I must know more of the man with the silver harp, who taught this Amril magic!"

Elminster looked up. "What happened to your tutor, and who was he?"

Amril Zoar glared down at him and said bitterly, "I never knew his name. He was killed by a knight of Waterdeep, who came seeking my father's death-and mine. He found my father's, but my tutor bought my life with his own."

Elminster let his hand fall to his side, and the spread-eagled noble sank, still spellbound and motionless, to hang a few feet off the dusty stone floor.

Mirt stepped forward in grim silence, axe in hand, and looked to Piergeiron.

The First Lord nodded. "For Waterdeep, then. For Tamaeril, and Resengar," he intoned.

The axe swept up, glittering.