Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [130]
"Die, devil!" Alassra Silverhand hissed.
The Simbul's spell sword melted out of her hands, leaving its own fiery pain behind. She flung herself back asij flames roared up in a thunderous column, shaking the • stony ground. Heat forced the Simbul a few hasty paces:1 farther away.
The serpent-devil's limp body withered and writhed at its heart. It shrank and faded away.
Another column of fire burst into being behind her, Jj melting the tip of one of her wings.The Simbul gasped at the pain. She whirled to face this new peril and hastily murmured the words that would make her wings pass | out of existence.
"Look up, human, before you die," came a cold command.
For once, the queen of Aglarond obeyed.
A pit fiend larger than any she'd ever seen before hung in the red air high above her, flanked by two others. In the distance, flights of erinyes were flapping nearer. A series of smoking explosions occurred on rocks all around as summoned barbed devils appeared. They strode, grinning cruelty at her as they advanced. One of.J them seemed in distress, convulsing and growing as it came. Its legs lengthened into three serpent tails. Its body 'J became taller and more shapely…
Another column of flame burst into being and roared skyward, ringing the Simbul. Over the lip of the dell in which she stood, a pale, glistening army appeared: a moaning wave of goggle-eyed, shapeless fleshy things, Lemures, the mindless, maggot-like living refuse of Hell. Terror was written on their empty faces, but their eyes held only darkness. They reached with misshapen arms toward her. Whips cracked over them, and abishai overseers peered eagerly at the lone human in the midst of the flames.
Slowly, the Simbul's wings sighed into nothingness. She went to her knees on the hard rocks, crossing her wrists in the gesture of surrender into slavery.
"Well, well," the pit fiend said softly,"this is going to be easier than I'd thought. Stay just as you are, human, while I chain you."
Minute sparks burst into being between the Simbul's wrists, where the metal scales embedded in her skin touched. She'd transformed her bracers into them after destroying Tasnya, and thrust the last few powers of her scorched garments into them. Now it was time to call on their true powers, one of the mightiest magics she'd ever crafted.
The eyes of the queen of Aglarond narrowed. Her magic was dwindling fast, and there were too many foes here to fight. It was time to use the Blood Ring.
She shuddered, her eyes locked pleadingly on the gloating gaze of the pit fiend that descended to her. It lazily shook out the links of a barbed chain crusted in old blood. The Simbul's will bore down on distant creatures… and her magic took them.
There was suddenly something in the air in front of the pit fiend. Something spherical and floating that sported a wide, smiling, many-toothed maw, a central eye that was wide with rage and fear, and.above this, like a wriggling crown, a writhing forest of eyestalks.The pit fiend stared in amazement, then sneered at what had to be a desperate illusion. No beholders roam free for long in Hell. Many eyes trained their gazes on the winged fiend.
"Very clever, human!" it jeered-just before the eye tyrant's magics reached it.The pit fiend struggled in midair ' j for a moment, caught in those gazes. It stiffened, turning dark… and began the slow, stony fall to a shattered death ' J on the rocks below.
It had been only one of many foes. Lemures tumbled and slithered down into the dell. Hamatula stalked to the gaps in the flames. Fiends filled the air.
Other creatures suddenly appeared beside the kneeling sorceress. Two human mages looked around in astonishment and mounting terror and snatched wands from their belts. Neither seemed to see each other or the Simbul, only | devils, devils everywhere.
In their midst, the sorceress closed her eyes and bade the beholder strike at the other two pit fiends before she bent all her will to calling one other creatures. Yes: the dragon…
It had taken decades of daring and careful