Elminster in Hell

Three barbed tails flipped up to slap the rocks in unison and propel the devil in an undulating charge. The swaying head came within a foot of Elminster's own. Ale-brown eyes with flames flickering in their depths stared hard into blue-gray, weary human ones... and beautiful red lips snaked into a smile.

"A spell-twisted human, if I'm not mistaken... transformed why? I'd best see just who you are before I cook you for di

The serpent-devil stiffened and hissed, rustling her wings with a single, convulsive shudder. She sent a mind-lance into Elminster... and found Nergal.

[ruby sun, blossoming and widening, serpentine awareness questing forth]

[tentacled giant turning to face the intrusion, gathering ominous strength]

"Ho-ho, a wizard of great power... memories aplenty here, both entertainment and something I could use, if I can but find the right remembrance... but hold: Here's a taint that's somehow famili-"

Malachladra!

"Nergal!"

Die, serpent-bitch!

"Your turn to feed worms, Lord Most High of Nothing!”

[mind bolt, turned aside, raw agony, Elminster screaming as walls smash down, ceilings fall, chambers collapse... mental arrows, leaping one two three, struck aside and hurled back in bright array... El still screaming]

"Human, I am Malachlabra, Duchess of Hell and daughter of Dispater! Cleave to me, and I'll rid your mind of this tentacled brute!"

[mind bolt strikes mind bolt, great flash, long despairing shriek of agony, El writhing as fires are hurled back and it forth in his burning mind]

"Human, I... ah, your name is-Elminster! Elmins Aumar, cleave to me!”

Abishai veered away, spitting and shouting, as the serpent-devil reared up and spat ribbons of fire far across Avernus. She drove one long, cruel talon into the ungainly creature at her feet. His raw screams died into frothy barking, and even maggots shrank away from the thing of churning flesh, erupting limbs, and wetly jetting gases.

Far away, the ground shook. Malachlabra shouted in triumph. She was still laughing, raised upright into a sky she; was raking with her talons, when Nergal's reply came down upon her.

The red air shimmered, bled purple, and rolled back for an instant. It vomited huge purple spheres of roaring, trembling flame on all sides of the serpent-devil.

Then, of course, they exploded.

Convulsing talons whipped and cartwheeled past' the ropy thing that was Elminster. Stones lashed at him, and he was drenched with she-devil gore. Torn and gutted lengths of serpent danced in macabre trembling long after they'd fallen among far stones. Where Malachlabra had been there was nothing but smoking, fresh-tumbled rocks-and black and crimson slime spattered on the stones.

All at once, as Nergal's laughter thundered through Elminster's mind, the thing of teeth and odd-shaped limbs and lumpy bodies shuddered. It ceased its shape-shifting chaos. Arching and snuffling, the transformed wizard writhed on blood-spattered rocks. Maggots reared up hungrily, yellow-white and glistening with slime. El, adrift in blood-shadows of suffering, never felt their gnawing.

So you can change shape at will, little man? Well, well. another secret it's time you yeilded to me. I'll Have All of them in the end, you know-but by the freezing styx, you make it hard work, tearing every last one out of you!

[Through rivers of blood, the tentacled creature shoulders fearlessly forward. Through many dark and shattered rooms, he seeks bright memories of shapeshifting.]

Silver fire threaded out, oh-so-subtly-mere droplets where rushing floods were needed. Face twisted in pain, Elminster Aumar writhed on the ground, slapping at maggots. As Nergal's thought bored on, probing ever deeper into El, the long and fissured torso dwindled. Its limbs became human arms again.

El groaned and let a little wash of silver fire sear the maggots gnawing him. They fell away, slain instantly. He collapsed again with a groan. Let Nergal think the shape-shifting was my doing and not Malacblabra's. Anything to keep him from noticing the fire...

[A great horned head looks sharply this way and that as it presses on through a mind where red rivers recede. Tentacles trail through the gore as it paces and peers.]

"Die, evil mage!" Cruel spears thrust like tongues of flame into his back. El snarls a curse that turns into a helpless spewing of blood. Spear points transfix him. They shove him forward, between the merlons, to plunge out into emptiness and down, down toward the stinking moat.

There are ragged cheers as he plummets, but they become shouts of alarm ere he reaches the ground. That landing will come somewhere else.

The ring on his finger has done its work. His very bones are rubber! His skin itches, his body feels wet and empty and sick... and it's flowing, changing as he struggles for breath. He watches the ground and the scum-cloaked water hurl itself up to meet him....

Less than the height of a man away from smashing into that water, the black-robed body becomes a black star. The burst of dark radiance freezes for a moment. The watching crowds murmur. It drifts sideways in the breeze ere it winks out and is gone....

***

Black, stinking pools bubble with sulfurous stinks. Cruel wasps alight on the heads of submerged, spellbound captives and thrust home their long stingers, trading venom for blood. The thrashing, foaming victims drown.

A sudden whirlpool pierces those waters. It turns up gigantic ribcages black with slime, and odd-shaped, unidentified things that are flung far and wide from the muck. At the heart of that whirlpool rises a cloud of red and black. It spins swiftly at first and then more slowly, to stand at last, revealed as-

"Malachlabra, Duchess of Hell and daughter of Dispater," murmured the watching Tasnya. She banished her scrying image with a lazy wave of her hand before the.' distant serpent-devil would have a chance to feel her scrutiny. "You are such a headstrong fool. Almost as bad as Nergal."

She gave her own cleverness a crooked smile and rolled over again to bite out the throat of an erinyes. As the others whimpered and shrank away from the gore-filled bed, the imps hovering above Tasnya never paused in their work, flogging her just the way she'd commanded, with the little barbed whips she'd fashioned. By the Nine, but she loved pain.

***

Again you try to dupe me, human! Just now stupid do you think i am?

[silence]

Yes, you'd better keep silent, about now. Fire and blood, how have you ever found anything in this wallow-pit you call a mind? Every link has a side trail, every memory two ok three overlapping it, and you dance in front of me like a little yapping imp, thrusting one thing into my face when i seek another! When i've got your secrets at last, i'm going to take great pleasure in your slow, painful death. I'm going to tear tender organs off you and out of you that you never knew you had!

[silence tinged with weary amusement]

Yes, i know you sneer at devils for their unsubtle cruelties, little human worm, but creatures can't sneer when they're too busy screaming.... You'll discover that too! Now, i want to see more memories-so get on with it!

Steaming bowls of soup sat on the weathered kitchen table before them. Hot tankards of cider stood to one side. The two silver-haired women ignored both in favor of chuckling over the latest "Heattsteel" novel out of Sembia.