Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [131]
Erinyes swooped down thickly. Ravaedrin of the Zhen- | tarim whimpered aloud at the sight. Desperately he shouted a spell that made one of the columns of flame into a geyser of acid. It sprayed in a great plume, dying in a single burst that hissed deafeningly down onto screaming devils.
On the other side of the Simbul, Kaladras Yarlamm of the Red Wizards saw the effects, though not who'd caused them. He abandoned the lightning that he was lashing a fiend with, to do the same to the flames nearest him. Some of the hamatula were only a few strides away, and he'd have to-
Die, screaming, as pit fiend magic sent him staggering into the reach of a barbed devil. It casually tore out his throat and face with one sweep of its talons.
A moment later, a pit fiend burst apart overhead under the magic of the beholder whose eyestalks it was savaging. It vanished too in a swirling cloud of gore and stabbing daggers and shrill shrieks.
The last pit fiend, still writhing from the lightning the Red Wizard had fed it, wheeled in the air and fixed its baleful gaze on the woman kneeling at the heart of the battle. She was the cause of all this tumult in Hell. She was the one they'd been commanded to bring back in chains-or as bloody, dripping fragments. The pit fiend Garauder favored the latter. He sent himself into a dive that would end at her throat.
He never saw the dragon that appeared in the air behind him. It spread jaws and clamped down, sharp fangs shearing away all of Garauder's hates and schemes in blood-drenched oblivion.
Gasping wearily, the Simbul rode the dragon with her will. She bade it smash through the erinyes thrice, then land and roll crushingly over the wounded, shrieking survivors. A hamatula staggered sightlessly past. Lemures squelched and died under the rolling dragon.
The Witch-Queen of Aglarond took stock of her tattered remnants of magic. She was too weak to fight on and survive.
Mystra defend thee, El.
There was no reply to her thought but a pain-laced, feeble flickering-flashing out, just for a moment, from behind a dark, fell awareness. She knew that mind-touch.
Despite herself, tears rose and broke over Alassra Silver-hand's iron will.
"Elminster!" she shouted through tears of pain and rage. "Hold on, love! I'll be back!"
The spell that would spin her back out of Avernus took hold. Mystra's strength cleft a road where the spells of mere mages could not.
With her last magic, the Simbul snatched the dragon and the surviving wizard back out of Hell. She returned them whence she'd brought them.They did not deserve to die here, trapped and in torment. They did not deserve Elminster's fate.
Hah! So much for her loyalty-and your hope! Your little bitch-queen's gone, fled away back to the lands of bright day, leaving her little elminster here in torment.
You're going to break, mage.
You're going to show me everything you know and remember, and beg me for the release of death. You're going to plead for my mercy, plead in vain, knowing always that negal is your doom!
[wild, diabolic laughter]
In the meantime, human, show me some magic-something worthwhile-or i'll eat a limb or two off you right now, keeping you aware and in full pain throughout! Show me!
Aye, but this will be a long showing.Ye must be patient and see all, so as to understand whatye're seeing…
Yes, yes. I understand all too well that again and again you've tricked and cheated me, promising great revelations of where magic is hidden and how to cast this or unleash that… Only to show me all sorts of romance and moral preaching and other useless dross. Give me magic, and live- cheat me again, and die. Simple enough?
Indeed. Let us begin, then, when night comes to Tamaeril.
Whenever. Just choose the