Elminster in Hell

This has gotten out of hand! where is Asmodeus? Where are the hosts of Hell? Is she going to be allowed to kill us all?

Fires of the pit, she can strike at me through you!

[mind bolt, dark and huge, sent to slay, roaring through the vaults...]

[... and rebounding back through the darkness to slap down Nergal]

Sobbing and convulsing, the tentacled devil rolled in darkness, his chain melting away.

"Sorry," said the naked, filthy man beside him. He waved stumps that were his arms. "We're too closely linked now, devil, for that to work."

With a sudden, furtive movement, Elminster raised one arm to touch what was tangled in his hair. He said in his mind, cold and crisp and hard, By the will ofTanthul and my need, let it be my bone shards, yonder-and let it be now.

Nergal had just time to dart a look at his mind-slave before the bone fragments in him expanded into duplicates of the larger bones they'd been a part of-and the archdevil's body burst apart with a deep, wet roar.

[song, mad music wild and screaming, red fire and staring, disbelieving diabolic eyes, fading to darkness... oblivion]

Alone and maimed in a cavern deep in Avemus, Elminster went to his knees and sobbed bitterly. The mind that had ridden his for a seeming eternity was stilled and gone…

It's a dark thing to lose any being one knows so well.

[red, writhing pain, drifting back so slowly through torment, at last to the light...]

"Fires take all," Nergal muttered, as weak and sick as he always was when coalescing back from tattered smoke and essence to solidity once more. He glared around blearily at the offal-choked cavern and the small, round black stone that was always there when he cheated death. More mighty contingency magic spent, wasted because of carelessness.

"That was a near one," he whispered, not yet strong enough to growl. "I'll never reign in Hell if I go on underestimating humans."

"Too true," a voice said sweedy, from behind him.

Nergal, rightful Prince of Hell, whirled around as quickly as he could on rubbery limbs. He stared into the smiling face of the Witch-Queen of Aglarond, who floated less than an arm's-reach away.

Her smile was as wide as that of a wolf, and her eyes were two dark flames.

"Go down forever, devil," she hissed-and spread her hands. Holy water that was afire with blue-white and silver flames burst over him in a torrent. The last thing Nergal ever heard was the Simbul snarling,"For what you did to the one I love, I just wish I could slay you again and again!"

A dark, scaled hand set down a goblet that smoked and bubbled green in the gloom. "How amusing," Asmodeus observed from his throne of linked, living she-devils, and meant it.

Idly the Lord of Nessus reached out. Slaying magic built and snarled darkly up his arm and filled his cupped hand. When his palm was full, he'd flick his wrist and sent it to Avernus.There it would slay the exhausted, sobbing human sorceress whose image floated above him. She even now embraced the ruined, armless body of a man in a hidden cavern, all her attention bent to pouring her vitality into him.

Asmodeus started to smile. Ah, sweet irony...

***

In a void of drifting stars, Mystra drew the howling man from her breast. She held Halaster out to face a whirling vision-the greatest devil of all smiling as dark fire filled, his hand. She whispered urgently,"Now!"

Halaster Blackcloak broke off a slobbering sound that was half-howl and half-giggle, drew himself up with dark eyes blazing, and snapped, "Asmodeus! Bow down!”

The Lord of Hell turned his head in astonishment- and across the voids and spheres and drifting chaos, their eyes met.

With a crooked smile Halaster Blackcloak said the word of the spell Mystra had taught him. All his raving madness roared out into Asmodeus, jolting that elegant body.

Those amused and sinister eyes rolled up and leaked golden fire. That quirked mouth parted in a cry of astonished agony.The fire of that titanic spell raged through the devil's mind.

As Mystra firmly dosed the link between void and Nessus Asmodeus blinked at the gloom all around and took another sip from his goblet. Now, what was it he'd been going to do? Something amusing...

***

Mystra laid down the black-robed wizard like a little doll on his own bed deep in Undermountain, patted the heads of his guardian deep dragons, and turned back to the void and the waiting arms of Azuth.

As they floated together, she sighed, smiled, and said, "I do love happy endings."

Before he kissed her, Azuth frowned and said gently, "That might well prove a problem in the future."

***

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 i

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. Gri

"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.