Elminster in Hell

There was a sickening crack from the courtyard below. Lord Irlar struck the stones and bounced, once. A moment later, Alustriel heard the sudden shout of a guard. Torches began to flicker and move.

She leaned on the sill for a moment to catch her breath, watching them, and then turned deliberately for the door. The harp's song began as a few happy notes and swelled around her. She walked, uncaring of her appearance, down the long dark passage, through the heavy doors, and around the turn to her uncle's door. As she approached, it was thrown open.

Thamator came out into the night gloom, his sword drawn.

"Who be ye?" he challenged roughly, blinking into the darkness. The music of the harp swirled around him.

"I still want to be a Harper," Alustriel told him, surprised at how calm her voice sounded.

"Ye, girl? Must ye wake me with such tricks at this time of night? Hast aught else to do?" her uncle demanded thickly. She knew from his tone that her music reminded him of someone else, from long ago. The sword in his hands began to glow palely. In the growing radiance she saw his jaw drop.

His gaze was on her bloody state of undress, and roved to take in the red whip weal’s crisscrossing her body. He took a step forward, peering at her in disbelief. "What, in the name of all the gods, bef-"

Then there was a clatter of hurrying boots, and a waving torch came around the corner, its light gleaming on helms and spear points... and anxious faces. "My lord!" snapped one of the guards, his voice high with tension. "The Lord Irlar! He's dead! In the courtyard, belike he's fallen from a window!"

"Aye," Alustriel said into the astonished silence, "he did." Ignoring the startled looks from the men crowding around her, she added, "After he was pushed."

Meeting her uncle's eyes steadily, she added, "1 was disinclined to become a bride of Bane-and before my wedding night, too."

She turned her back on them all with newfound dignity and left then. Her uncle's astonished curses faded behind her as she sought her room again. His voice sounded, she thought, amazed and... and a little pleased.

Now to ask Gaerd how to become a Harper. Alustriel looked down at herself, shrugged at her state of dress, and turned her aching, whip-scarred legs down a different passage. Why not now? Why should her uncle be the only one roused this night?

When she knocked on the wizard's door, it opened, and Gaerd was smiling at her-sleepily, but smiling nonetheless.

There was a crystal sphere in his hand, and in it she saw, with a little shock, the open window of her room as seen from within... captured as a tiny scene within the.'j globe. The mage waved her to a chair, beaming at her proudly. On the table beyond the seat, a harp of silver hue was playing softly, by itself... and with a smile, she recognized her tune.

Chapter Thirteen

NERGAL SURPRISED

Adrift in a dream of pain, Elminster gradually came awake to the realization that it was real. He was floating, or falling, through a cloud of red and black smoky foulness shot through with crackling fires. Bolts of bright fury lanced out of it from time to time to transfix him. He was falling through Nergal's mind.

Awake, little worm? Wasted my time again, thank you kindly.

[mind bolt jabs repeatedly until the human writhes and curls in shuddering pain, and then jabs still more]

What did i think of it? Charming. [sneer] Defeat a man by luck, and take your reward from the goddess.

[gasp] Well, mind-slave, i've lost patience. Again. Prepare to he taken apart. I'm through dancing to your little games. I'm going to find and take the useful memories from you and be done. Die, mighty wizard!

[bright arc of mind bolts, raining down like fire and splashing back up to overwhelm all, searing the tumbling, howling, fading form of the human host]

Give me, fool! Give me what i seek!

[bright ring of fire, tightening into a noose around the falling, dwindling, limbless essence of Elminster]

Give me that silver fire!

***

In the void where stars fall endlessly, a head lifted, blue-black hair swirling behind it in a great wave. Stars shaped themselves into a frown. "Something is amiss."

The Weave quivered once more. Mystra's eyes blazed in sudden silver.

"Elminster! Old Rogue, what befalls?"

She reached out for the familiar sly warmth, the impudent whimsy that always met her touch with a wink and a caress... and found nothing.

"Elminster!”

Alarmed, the goddess of magic gathered her strength around her in bright array and quested forth in earnest.

Pain... the silver fire spilling... in the Hells!

Her teacher, the root of much of her power, her surest link to the Mystra who'd been before her-in peril!

"No!” Brightness blazed up amid the stars, and the void shook.

Across Faerun, altars to the Lady of All Mysteries erupted in blue fire that consumed nothing and seared no hand caught in it but jolted all sworn faithful into full, restless wakefulness. Locks on spellbooks failed, and tomes boomed open. Runes blazed up to trace spi

In a clearing in Neverwinter Wood, the young mage Dethaera Matchlass drifted wonderingly in the grip of her first Magefire ritual. She soared in sudden bright array high above the astonished heads of her fellow worshipers. She sobbed in pain and wonder as spell after unfamiliar, mighty spell unfolded in bright glory in her mind.

In the green depths of Myth Dra

In Waterdeep, a young girl staring up at Ahghairon's Tower walked through the hitherto-impenetrable barriers around it. Its door swung open at her approach. Eagerly she stepped inside and came not forth again.

In Luskan, one of the overwizards of the Arcane Brotherhood, in the midst of ordering a cruel fate for a clumsy apprentice, suddenly acquired the head of a lion in place of his own. In baffled horror, he commenced to roar helplessly, his means of working magic and of conversing both snatched from him in an instant.

In Suzail, while stepping curtly past a barely concealed Harper spy in a little-known passage in the palace of the Purple Dragon, Vangerdahast stiffened. The lady almost stepped out of hiding to steady him as he reeled, but the gruff old wizard strode on, slamming a door hastily behind him. In the chamber beyond was a chair, a writing-desk, a cloak stand, and a mirror. He leaned on the desk, wondering why his blood was afire, and happened to look into the mirror. The face that looked back was not his own, but female, with eyes both wise and beautifully young. Breathing heavily, Vangerdahast blinked-and the mirror shattered. He turned away grimly, knowing that at last it was time.

In Avernus, a ball of fire raced down to burst amid scorched pi

In a hundred gorges and on a thousand mountainsides below, devils lifted their heads, stiffening. They took wing in great hosts and saw a human woman standing alone in midair, as tall as a dozen devils and cloaked in her own blue-black hair.

" Where is he?" her voice rolled out across all Avernus.

Pit fiend generals winced and growled. Lesser devils cringed. Those flying against her faltered. Black whips lashed them on. The intruder watched them come and did nothing.

Forks and lances and fire-daggers plunged into her as if into nothing, tearing her bright raiment. Where bared flesh should have leaked blood, there was only darkness in the air, shot through with rushing stars. The eyes of the floating lady flared silver.