Elminster in Hell

A roar echoed around the throne room. Everyone stopped and turned. Even spell blasts and the screams of the dying hushed. It was the roar of massive magic unleashed, Mystra's power left behind for her Chosen.

In its blue, raging heart stood a man, a wizard made whole again, a figure of white fire tinged with blue around its edges.

He strode from where the tray had been, swaying in the throes of power that made the very air throb.

Beams lanced out from Elminster's trembling fingers and glaring eyes-to smite devil and Red Wizard, Malau-grym and Sharran alike, consuming them in sighing instants until none were left in the throneroom.

The Old Mage leveled both his hands to point at the shadowy web filling the end of the room. Blinding flames of blue-white and silver roared forth from his palms.

The explosion that followed left only bright sky and crumbling ashes in that end of the palace. Elminster blinked at the destruction with the same awe felt by the others still alive in the throneroom. In the ringing silence that followed, the shattered roof above them groaned loudly and started to fell.

Blocks of stone rained down, ponderous and deadly. If it hadn't been for bright bolts fired so frantically by the crouching Seven and the blasts emitted by the Black-staff, the roof might have claimed the lives of everyone in that place.

Instead, dust rained down, thick and choking, bringing with it an almost ominous quiet.

***

The sky was darkening into purple dusk before true peace came to the dust-shrouded throne of Aglarond. Gone were the courtiers, corpses, and those sent by Mystra. The throne room stood open to the sky. Fallen stone blocks lay strewn here and there beneath the winking stars.

Elminster and the Simbul stood together in each other's arms.Three regals knelt a little distance away, awaiting their queen's command. The fourth regal was missing, but they kept their thoughts away from her face and name. There would be time enough for grieving yet.

"Oh, my love," the Simbul said fiercely, "When I thought I'd lost you..."

"Gently," Elminster murmured, kissing her nose and brow and ears." 'Tis done-and hear this, lady of my heart: I vow henceforth to spend more time with thee and let Faerun run more of its own affairs without my meddling."

"That shall be my vow, too," the Queen of Aglarond said in a trembling voice. She reached for his lips with her own.

"Well said," hissed a voice from rubble nearby.

Phaeldara lay trapped with Thaergar of the Doors, pi

"Aye," Thaergar gasped, wincing as Phaeldara squirmed beside his shattered arm."I cleave... most heartily... to the same view!"

The three kneeling regals heard them and shrieked- cries that brought Elminster and the Simbul ru

As the spells that would free them were hastily chanted, the fainting man and the woman under the fallen stone thought they heard something else.

A strange echoing mirth that just might have been a god and goddess of magic chuckling, not so far away...