Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [8]
El clenched his teeth and shook his head in a vain effort to keep them at bay. The archdevil merely thrust them in through El's nostrils instead, down and in. There was a clawing, a horrible wrenching-and more blood. The arch-devil tossed aside the bloody gobbet that had been Elminster's tongue, dealt El a slap that spun his head around, and stanched the welling, choking blood in his mouth at the same time.
"Ruin it? Why, what need have you for a tongue when we can converse in your mind? I can gouge out your eyes and tear out your every organ-even dine on your liver, say, with sauce and salt-and then restore you with my magic. You think small, man! This is Hell, and here archdevils can do anything!''
El struggled – successfully-to raise a disbelieving eyebrow.
The eyes looking into his blazed up in fury, and tentacles rose in a menacing array. Rose, surged forward, and sank back again.
Nergal gave his captive a nod of rueful agreement and a wintry smite. "Well, then, let us say 'anything another archdevil does not manage to prevent, hmm?" The tentacles set Elminster down against a rock as sharp as lagged glass. The Old Mage slid a little, wincing despite all his other raging pains, and fetched up in a sitting position.
Nergal paced back and forth, something cat like and yet serpentine in his stalking. "There are a dozen of us outcasts, eight among us with power enough to challenge, say, Mammon, if the battle were between two, alone, without armies to call on. We are not friends, one with the other, and Asmodeus sees that our regard for each other remains fierce. As rivals, we lurk in the caverns and mountain rifts of Avernus, pursuing our individual plots against the ruling devils-and avoiding the patrols, for even stinging insects have the power to weaken and annoy."
The tentacled archdevil came to a halt close by his stumped captive, looming up dark and tall. Barbs and claws rose out of his flesh like the fins of cruising sharks and ran down his tentacles in a hungry cycle. Teeth that seemed long enough, now, to be called fangs flashed In a less-than-pretty smile.
"Men and devils are not so different that you'll be unaware of what we outcasts hunger after: power. We are always seeking it, armed with our magic. Devils with minds of their own can grasp and work magic as readily as men breathe. We have one other weapon that the Lords of the Nine can never have: time to spare. With my time and magic, I watch your magic-rich Toril"
Nergal crossed arms that swam with a glistening array of small, blinking, human-seeming eyeballs, and bent their manifold gazes on Elminster.
"Beings of power interest me, from the puny masters of your thieving guilds to the dragons and lich lords of Faerun who wield almost a tenth of the spell-might they think they do. "With a grin too wide for human jaws, the archdevil began to pace again. "So I use my spells to spy on Faerunians of might who may prove useful. I've been watching you for a long time, Elminster Aumar. You are the key, I've long thought. Not because you're half so mighty as you think you are, or even a match for a spinagon in a fair battle, but because you are my road to gaining Mystra's power over magecraft. She works through you very strongly, and what she has, when suitably modified, could thunder just as strongly in Hell… giving me control over all magic, and in some measure those who work it!"
Nergal laughed again. "This tumult over Shade captured my attention at just the right time and has delivered you to me. Now all I need do, to gain the powers of the lady you serve, or at least the ways of calling on and controlling it, is master your mind."
Tentacles plucked Elminster from the rocks again and held him with casual tenderness. Another tentacle stabbed down, bursting the Old Mage's left eye tike a raw egg. After a momentary chaos of swimming brightness, Elminster could sec once more-albeit dimly, through a blood-red haze.
"See? You can't even die on me," Nergal purred into Elminster's lace, as tenderly