Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [76]
"Die, evil mage!" Cruel spears thrust like tongues of flame into his back. El snarls a curse that turns into a helpless spewing of blood. Spear points transfix him. They shove him forward, between the merlons, to plunge out into emptiness and down, down toward the stinking moat.
There are ragged cheers as he plummets, but they become shouts of alarm ere he reaches the ground. That landing will come somewhere else.
The ring on his finger has done its work. His very bones are rubber! His skin itches, his body feels wet and empty and sick… and it's flowing, changing as he struggles for breath. He watches the ground and the scum-cloaked water hurl itself up to meet him…
Less than the height of a man away from smashing into that water, the black-robed body becomes a black star. The burst of dark radiance freezes for a moment. The watching crowds murmur. It drifts sideways in the breeze ere it winks out and is gone…
***
Black, stinking pools bubble with sulfurous stinks. Cruel wasps alight on the heads of submerged, spellbound captives and thrust home their long stingers, trading venom for blood. The thrashing, foaming victims drown.
A sudden whirlpool pierces those waters. It turns up gigantic ribcages black with slime, and odd-shaped, unidentified things that are flung far and wide from the muck. At the heart of that whirlpool rises a cloud of red and black. It spins swiftly at first and then more slowly, to stand at last, revealed as-
"Malachlabra, Duchess of Hell and daughter of Dispater," murmured the watching Tasnya. She banished her scrying image with a lazy wave of her hand before the.' distant serpent-devil would have a chance to feel her scrutiny. "You are such a headstrong fool. Almost as bad as Nergal."
She gave her own cleverness a crooked smile and rolled over again to bite out the throat of an erinyes. As the others whimpered and shrank away from the gore-filled bed, the imps hovering above Tasnya never paused in their work, flogging her just the way she'd commanded, with the little barbed whips she'd fashioned. By the Nine, but she loved pain.
***
Again you try to dupe me, human! Just now stupid do you think i am?
[silence]
Yes, you'd better keep silent, about now. Fire and blood, how have you ever found anything in this wallow-pit you call a mind? Every link has a side trail, every memory two ok three overlapping it, and you dance in front of me like a little yapping imp, thrusting one thing into my face when i seek another! When i've got your secrets at last, i'm going to take great pleasure in your slow, painful death. I'm going to tear tender organs off you and out of you that you never knew you had!
[silence tinged with weary amusement]
Yes, i know you sneer at devils for their unsubtle cruelties, little human worm, but creatures can't sneer when they're too busy screaming… You'll discover that too! Now, i want to see more memories-so get on with it!
Steaming bowls of soup sat on the weathered kitchen table before them. Hot tankards of cider stood to one side. The two silver-haired women ignored both in favor of chuckling over the latest "Heattsteel" novel out of Sembia.
" 'Eyes flashing,' " a voice on the tremulous edge of helpless laughter announced unsteadily to the world, " 'she flung dweomers that flashed brightly at the otherworldly apparition…' "
The other woman groaned in derisive disgust and fell into helpless gales of laughter a breath behind her sister.
Storm, who held both the book and the current title of Reader Aloud to the Assembled, mastered her mirth first. Tossing long hair back out of her eyes, she eyed her sister's shaking shoulders and said gruffly, "None of that laughing, now-we've an epic to finish!"
" 'A bodice-throbbing saga of broken hearts and blazing spells!' " Sylune quoted with a fresh whoop of laughter. "Wherein boldly thrusting blades strike at the heart of evil, smiting aside chastity belts in the way!"
Storm looked up at her. "It doesn't say that," she! protested mildly,