Elminster in Hell

"Could and did," Lhaeo told him. "I had to try it, once I thought of it."

Elminster emitted a sort of incredulous "eep," and looked down at the neat piles of crustless sandwiches on the plates before him.

Lhaeo gave him a disgusted look. "You don't mess about much in kitchens, do you?"

At that moment a fat-bellied copper frog statuette on a nearby shelf opened one eye and its mouth, cleared its throat, and said in flat tones.- "Bong."

Lhaeo groaned. "They're here." He waved a hand wildly, murmured something-and all the glass in the room rose back into place in a smooth, glittering swirl.

Elminster raised a sardonic brow. "Getting a little show}' now, for the ladies?"

The window made a very rude sound in reply.

Elminster ignored it. Lifting two fingers in a swift little gesture, he said to the empty air. "Pray enter and be welcome, ladies fair. Let my humble home be a refuge to thee, however unworthy its accoutrements. As ye walk about my home, I bid ye remember only this: If ye don't touch it, it can't hurt ye. Tea is served in the room whose door is now glowing blue."

Blue mists roiled for a moment at the far end of the chamber. The door there swung wide.

Something large and lace-trimmed and seemingly triple-bosomed sailed in through the mists before Elminster could finish putting a kindly smile on his face. "Oh, so YOU are the GREAT Elmin-STAH! SUCH an honor, SUCH a rare joy to meet you! My friends back in Selgaunt will be SO jealous! A REAL live archWIZARD, sitting in his own parlor with all his books and fu

There was an obedient chorus of "Yes, great lady" from the doorway, but Great Lady Calabrista wasn't waiting to hear it.

"I want you to know, sirrah, that we have come SUCH a long way just to see YOU, and that I've chosen only the FINEST of my young ladies! I'd not DREAM of wasting your time on anything but the BEST! Oh, yes, I think you'll be HIGHLY satisfied at the sort of young lady my little school produces-if I DO say so, myself! Girls? GIRLS! Dally not at the doorway, but come in, come in,, so the GREAT Elminster can see you!"

The teacup in front of Elminster muttered, "Sounds like a slaver I once heard in Tharsult." The voice sounded suspiciously like a tiny, ti

Elminster smiled and said, "GREAT Lady Calabrista, ye must be SO hungry after such a LONG, ARDUOUS journey!"

The teacup sputtered, but Elminster ignored it. "PRAY enter in and sit in my BEST chair, and partake of these SUCCULENT sandwiches and a little light berry cordial.... Thy young ladies, too, I'm sure, would not take such fare amiss...."

Before he finished speaking, the owner of the high- '! prowed gown and helm-high hairdo had whisked herself into the pink silk cushions of a gilded high-back lounge. It had been a rotting mushroom in the forest out by Harper's Hill only that morning. She swept sandwiches onto a silver self-platter faster than raindrops fly to earth. A dainty decanter of cordial floated gently off a shelf to fill a fluted glass at the Great Lady Calabrista's elbow, causing her to emit a surprised little titter.

Four young and silken-gowned beauties drifted into the room, making hand-courtesies as they came. They ranged themselves before the four empty chairs farthest '] from their tutor. Their beauty was as gilded as fine court furniture, but at least two of their smiles held a touch too much superior sneer. All of them affected slight boredom and languid ease. All of them would soon catch cold in the gowns they had chosen to impress. Watching pearls glisten, slippers glide, and pendulous gem-cluster earrings sway and dangle, Elminster was begi

"Come along, come closer, girls! DON'T be shy; great men have no time for shy little girls! Sirrah Elminster, these sandwiches are QUITE the most EXQUISITE morsels that have passed these my lips in weeks! Why, whatever are they made of?"

"Snail, Great Lady," Elminster said with the sweetest of smiles. "Laced with a green paste made from only the largest tree-slugs of the forest around us, garnished with pepper and lemon-squeezings, of course."

"Of course," the Great Lady Calabrista echoed, faintly and haltingly.

Elminster put a firm hand over his teacup to muffle its snort of mirth.

Four gracefully extended hands stopped, quivered, and withdrew, leaving platters untouched.

The Old Mage raised his brows. "Oh, but they're GOOD! Nobles in Waterdeep prize nothing else more highly! And if the gods smile upon thee, and grant their brightest luck-" He leaned forward eagerly, peering at the sandwiches upon the platter before him, until his hand stabbed suddenly down, to peel back bread and reveal a hurrying slug undulating out of the heart of a sandwich-for just a moment, before he slapped the bread back into place, snatched the sandwich to his mouth, and bit down, hard-"ye find a live one! Ah, there's nothing like it!”

As he spoke, the green head of the slug poked out of the corner of his mouth, twisted this way and that ques-tioningly, and then vanished within again. Elminster chewed heartily, beaming at his guests. The little illusions get 'em, every time.

"I-I think it would be best," the Great Lady Calabrista quavered, "if we proceeded with the burden of our visit. Men of great influence in Sembia-not to put too fine a point on it, men of great WEALTH-have enrolled their daughters at my school for some years now, seeking to find those who are GIFTED BY THE GODS with an aptitude for magic... an aptitude that I flatter myself I can draw out without recourse to dark altars and midnight fires and sacrifices of, er, snails.... THAT IS TO SAY, I am confident that these, my BEST students, will not disappoint any competent practitioner of the ART! I was REQUESTED to bring them before you by VERY highly placed individuals, for your examination and-ah, approval."

"Ye have done well and wisely," Elminster said with a smile. "I approve of all of them."

"You DO? Without eve-that is to say, their fitness at magic shines forth so BRIGHTLY?"

"Indeed, Great Lady," Elminster said with a gracious smile, gently slapping his teacup (which had begun to emit small sounds that resembled hiccups), "it doth. Indubitably. Had ye not had so GREAT a hand in the shaping of their glories, their power would blind EVEN YE! Let me tender my apologies, ladies four, for discussing thee as one does cattle, or fine gowns, or the luster of china.... What concerns me most is not thy grasp of spells but thy thinking, and characters, and the daily flight of thy heans. Perhaps we can assay a begi

Glass burst into the room in a thousand sparkling shards. Sighing, Elminster put one hand over his teacup again.

"Die, cursed mageling!" The mage in the window thrust her hands forward in claws, and lightning burst from her long fingers.

They snarled across the room amid the customary blinding flashes and spitting sparks, and struck something unseen a foot or so shy of the Old Mage's nose. He calmly watched them rebound, amid the screams, crashing headlong flights, sprays of loose pearls, and the Great Lady Calabrista clawing her way up the back of her grand chair, which promptly overbalanced to reveal far, far too many silk and gem-beaded gauze petticoats to the world. Lightnings clawed at the Red Wizardess who'd cast them. They scattered before her shield as she snarled in angry triumph and lashed out at random around the room, causing a certain teacup to dance, chairs to slump back into mushrooms again, and the frog to open both its eyes very wide and inquire, "Bong?"

In three breaths the room was empty of four Sembian ladies. Elminster reclined at ease in his chair, sandwich in hand. He watched with interest as the last of his young visitors, trembling and white to the very lips, held forth a wand she'd snatched out of a hitherto-hidden hip sheath, gritted her teeth, and hissed out a word that brought the stick of wood in her hands into furious life.