Elminster in Hell

Chapter Fifteen

Black talons closed cruelly on shuddering, cringing white flesh.

There you are! Again you toy with me!

Bulging arms plucked and tore at the thing that might have been human, shaking it furiously-so violently that some bleeding appendages fell off.

[whimper]

Hah! Some vaunted archmage you are!

[spell flash, rattle of spell-spun chain] [sizzle of burning flesh, howl of pain]

Hah! That jolted you, didn't it? Yes, i can hurl spells better than most mortals. Behold, your very own collar and chain. Good dog.

[laughter]

What… have ye done to me?

Put you on a leash, to keep other devils from eating you-or worse.

There's worse? [wry amusement]

Oh, yes. Why, if y- but no. We'll not speak of such things. Trying to worm the secrets of hell our of me? Mortal, what the hell are you playing at?

[mental chuckle] Well said.

There was a moment of menacing silence, there on a smoking ridge in Avernus, before Nergal laughed too.

Human, i begin m think i'm going to miss you.

You're leaving? So soon? [mental snort]

Idiot. A jester among wizards, you are. Down, dog, and come hack this way with me, and i'll heal you a little. I don't want a trail of blood to bring us unwanted attention.

Where are we going?

Somewhere else. [bellow of laughter] Stew on that, clever wizard. Think humans are the only ones mighty in magic? Why, i know a spell that can bind a demon for a hundred years in the shape of a sword. We call them "doomblades." There are a dozen or more wandering around your precious toril right now, in various unwitting hands. You steal any swords lately, wizard?

Ah, how recently?

[gusts of laughter] Ah, elminster, you'll slay me yet!

Ahem. A figure of speech, of course.

En? Indeed, indeed. Little human bastard.

Silently, a pointed rock behind the archdevil moved, curling out like a dark finger….

Nergal let healing fire wash briefly over the shuddering human in his hands. He bent his will and watched his magic turn the scrawny man slowly into a creature of Hell: a nupperibo, bloated and dirty and yellow-white. With a tight smile he dropped Eminster to hang, choking and strangling, at the end of the spike-studded chain. Fresh blood flowed as his captive's new bulk was dashed helplessly against the barbs.

Nergal shook the chain, rattling his struggling captive against a rock. El clutched frantically at the chain to avoid having his neck broken. He danced for his life as the arch-devil threw back his head and laughed.

With a sudden, dark surge, the point of rock stabbed forward-and thrust through the laughing pit fiend like a gigantic spear tip.

Nergal screamed.

Impaled and aflame, the pit fiend flailed vainly at the skies, beat his great wings in agony, and staggered frantically forward. He dragged himself gorily off the rock. The spear of stone flashed blue-white, searing the shrieking devil each time.

When the outcast devil staggered free, it was visibly smaller, and trembled violently with each step. A sudden flurry of small explosions-erupting magic left in it by the stone-rocked its guts. Gore and entrails spewed in all directions. Shuddering and bent over, Nergal sagged to the stones of Avernus. He groaned and dwindled into a shuddering thing of tentacles.

The stone that had pierced the archdevil moved again. It arched over to touch the ground, its matter visibly flowing. The tip grew thicker, and straighter, standing tall and then… breaking away and taking a bold step out onto the sharp rocks of Hell.

A white-haired, bald wizard stood above the chained heap that was Elminster. His eyes blazed with blue-white flame as he spun a web of the same glowing hue around the captive mage.

The net touched the chain, crackled angrily along it, and collapsed. Halaster muttered a curse and raised his hands to weave another spell.

He was three murmured words into it when a cloud of stones streamed up from a ridge behind him. It hurtled down and smashed into the wizard, sending him flying with a startled cry. The stones crashed onto the rocks of Avernus and stopped bouncing. Halaster was somewhere beneath them, unseen… and unmoving.

"In Hell, human, you get only one strike" Nergal spat, rising into view from behind the ridge, his eyes flaming red. Four more boulders were clutched in his tentacles.^ult's best to make it a good one."

The heap of stones he'd hurled heaved once, twice- and then flew apart, a blue-white flame roaring up out of their heart.

Nergal sneered and fed it flames of black and ruby-red, hungrily clawing at the stones. They shattered into deadly spraying shards.

The pain-wracked worm that Elminster had become undulated frantically away. Hot shards sliced into him and sizzled where they sank in.

The blue-white flame stood like a knife-blade in the heart of Nergal's spell flames. It erupted into a flurry of bolts that beheaded the tentacled devil.

"Hah!" roared a face that promptly grew on the end of a tentacle. "Thought you'd slain me, wizard? This is how you hurl a brightbolt spell!"

A flurry of bolts twice as large and numerous as Halaster's streaked back at the mage. The very stones on which he stood vanished in blast after blast that hurled the agent of Mystra into the air. Leaking blue-white flame, he fell back into the inferno of creaking, red-hot rocks and landed in a frantic whirl of magic. He staggered upright.

"I'm here for your blood, devil" Halaster snarled, raising hands that crackled with lightning.

"And I," Nergal snarled, growing scorpion-sting tails to match his many tentacles,"am here for yours!"

Halaster's spell-a bright net of silver lances linked by lightning and girded about with spirals of holy water- crashed down on the outcast devil. Nergal roared out his pain.

The ground under Halaster thrust up in huge fangs of dark, smoking devil bone, much as the mad wizard had first attacked Nergal. Like that attack, those fangs transfixed their target.

Screaming hoarsely, Halaster wriggled, impaled on what proved to be one of Nergal's tentacles-a tentacle that ended in a long, slender spike of bone. Shuddering off the effects of the archmage's spell, the outcast devil managed a short, ugly laugh and thrust his foe up into the air.

The thorn of bone was twice as tall as the man it pierced. Striking between the wizard's legs, it had thrust its way up through guts and lungs to burst out of Halaster's throat, shoving his head aside. Blue-white flames leaked from the mad wizard in a dozen places as his failing, darkening eyes sought Elminster.

"I'm… sorry," he gasped hoarsely."I-tried."

Blue-white flame blazed up and spun Halaster away from the bone-fang, leaving it bare. Fire whirled in a small, spinning sphere in the air. Nergal raised a taloned hand to rake it-but the sphere suddenly grew very small and very bright. Halaster tumbled inside it like a broken doll… winked out, and was gone.

Elminster and Nergal both blinked up at the empty blood-red sky. In unison, they dropped their gazes to peer around at the scorched and smoking rocks, seeking little dancing blue-white stars or some other evidence of Halaster's survival.

There was nothing like that to be seen.

Nergal laughed, a sound that began out of relief, and became gloating.

So flees your last hope, elminster.any more rescue pacts? Mages who own you enough to risk theik lives coming here? [weary silence]

I thought not. Well, then, let me dive into your shattered little mind again and see more memories of you meddling- only this time let it be with rulers and mages and adventurers, not any comely lass who happens by… It's magic i'm ahter, remember? Remember?

[mind lash, red pain, hasty flourish of bright images, fading and falling, then whirling up into a single display once more…]

"My lord," said the Simbul, and tears shone in her eyes, "I cannot stay longer. Those fools of Thay would try to wrest my land from me again. I am needed."

Elminster smiled.

The bard Storm Silverhand sat near, thoughtfully putting a better edge on her old and battered long sword. Only she and the Simbul knew him well enough to see the sadness hidden behind his eyes.

"Of course," he said simply, 'These things-as always- must be." He stepped forward with surprising speed and embraced her.

The morning sun shone bright and clear through the trees of Shadowdale. Leaf-shadows dappled the rocks on the rising flanks of Harper's Hill. Storm's blade flashed back the sun as she turned it, keeping silence.

In his old and deep voice, Elminster muttered things into the Simbul's hair, and she whispered words back. No other was meant to hear them. Storm took care that she did not. That was the way she was.

The two great archmages half-turned toward her as they parted. Storm saw the brief gleam of a large blue gem that Elminster put it into the Simbul's hand. " Tis a rogue stone," she heard him say. "It will bring ye to wherever I am, should ye need to see me in haste. Go, now. These partings grow no easier to me as the years pass."

The Simbul nodded, slipped the gem into a pocket of her girdle, and aimed back to kiss him impulsively. She whirled away in silence and leaped into the air, her black robes dwindling and flapping. A black falcon rose on swift wings into the sun, banked sharply eastward, and was gone.

The Old Mage stood silent and unmoving for long minutes, watching where she had gone. When the birds in the trees started their calls again, Storm slid her shining blade into its sheath and went to him.

In silence the two old friends linked hands and turned to go down the trail together.

After about a dozen paces, Elminster asked, "D'ye mind, lass, if I cry?"

Storm kissed his cheek softly and said, "Of course not. I think you should do so far more often."

"Romantic," he growled back, in mock disapproval.

"Fellow romantic," she replied, and put her ami comfortingly around him. He growled but did not pull free. She did not have to glance his way to know how wet his face had become.

How sweet. More lust and sugared words. Weep, little wizard, weep. I suppose such remembrances comfort you now, but i can't think why. I'd be raging. How much time you've wasted over females-just rut and move on, and save me all this "love.' there is no such thing as love.

For devils, no. I'm not a devil, Nergal.

But well on your way to being one, elminster. Belive me.

Oh? Is this something I should make a habit of?

[diabolic chuckle] on with it, wizard! You're wasting time again! Give it up, idiot-no one's going to rescue you now!

Show me what i seek, or at least what happened after you stopped embracing and crying and kissing.

As ye wish.

[bright images, flittering down, down]

She was young, slim, and very beautiful. Tarth swallowed and tried not to stare.

Silvery-gray hair flowed from her head in-long waves, curling smoothly about arms and tiny waist and long, long legs. She reclined in a low bough of an old indulwood tree, smoking a clay pipe and regarding him in thoughtful silence. Her eyes were blue-green, flecked with gold, and very large.

"Ah… well met!" said Tarth awkwardly, leaning on his staff. He'd plundered old magic in forgotten tombs across the Dragonreach, and peered into forbidden tomes in places both dusty and dangerous, but he'd never been so close to a beautiful female moon elf before.

Tentatively he bowed and smiled. She returned his smile, enchantingly. Tarth stared deep into those exquisite eyes and cleared his throat.

"I–I've traveled a long way, good lady, to reach this place. Could you tell me, please, where the tower of the sage Elminster stands?"

The elf-maiden nodded. "Up yonder path, past the pool," she replied, her voice husky, yet dancing. She giggled.

Tarth stared in helpless wonder.

A long, slim ami reached out to him. "This is his pipe, which I… borrowed. Will you return it for me?"

Tarth nodded. In a silent whirl of flashing limbs she vanished into the leafy shade overhead, leaving him holding the still-smoking pipe. He stared down at it for a moment, then peered vainly up again into the tree, shrugged, and went on.

Ho, ho. I think i'm going to see secrets of magic at last! or is this just one more of your tricks, mage? Hey?

[silence]

still in the throes of agony down there? Too bad.

The little path turned off the main road through Shadowdale just in front of Tarth's well-worn boots. No sign or runestone marked it for what it was, but the directions given him had been clear enough. The young wizard stood alone for a long time, staring along the line of worn flagstones in the grass, before he stepped onto them.

The way led him between two tumbledown cottages and across a grassy field toward the great, rising rock of the Old Skull. A still, peaceful pond glimmered off to the left. Birds sang, and chipmunks called, Tarth Hornwoocl, known by some as "Thunderstaff," walked slowly and fearfully up the garden path. He could see what lay at its end now: a squat stone tower that leaned slightly to one side.

Tarth held his staff menacingly in one hand, hoping he would not have to use it. Its power seemed to have been growing weaker of late. On his other hand gleamed the Lost Ring of Murbrand. Tarth hoped there would be no need to call upon its powers, either. Despite days of research and experimentation, he did not know how to command the ring to do anything.

At the spot where a trail of moss and beaten grass branched off and ran down to the pond, a large flat rock lay beside the path. Its top was worn smooth, as if many folk had sat upon it over the years. Just now it held a curved, smooth-carved pipe, twin to the one he carried. It was lit, smoking quietly in the morning air all by itself.

Tarth stared at it. Was it some sort of trap? The Old Mage himself, perhaps, shapechanged to avoid prying intruders? The young wizard looked at the pipe for a long time and then with a shrug reached down. He'd faced danger enough and lived to tell the.tale-and this was only a pipe. He hoped. His fingers touched it, warm and hard and smooth, and he almost jerked his hand away.

His fingertips tingled against it as he waited. A bird flew past; silent minutes lengthened. Carefully Tarth picked the pipe up and quickly looked all around. Nothing menaced. Nothing was altered. It was exactly the same as the one the elf had given him.

Two pipes that smoked by themselves. Tarth held them carefully out before him to avoid breathing in their smoke, and walked on toward the waiting tower.

Its small, plain door faced him blankly. Tarth leaned his staff into the crook of one elbow and reached out with his freed hand toward the pull ring of the door, to knock.

His fingers were still inches away when the door swung open silently.

Tarth stepped back in alarm. After a few breaths of silence, he stepped forward again, and then hesitated, peering into the darkness.

"Well, stand not on the threshold, welcoming flies in! Enter, and unburden thyself of whatever matter ye have sought me out for, mageling!" came an imperious voice from within.

Tarth swallowed, and took a step forward. "How-how did you know I work magic?" he found himself asking, before he could stop the words from spilling out.

" Tis written in foot-high letters on thy forehead, of course," came the dry answer. ""Have ye not noticed it before?" A sort of grunt followed, and the voice continued. "Hmm… ye must be an adventurer… such pay the least heed to the world around them… Well? Come in, then! Tis not so difficult-advance thy other foot, as ye did the last, use thy staff for balance, then boldly reach ahead thy first foot, again, and the deed is done!"

Tarth did so, and found himself in a dark, dust-choked chamber piled to the ceiling with parchments and thick leather tomes. Upon a stack of particularly massive books perched an old, straggle-bearded man in flowing robes. One gimlet eye fixed on Tarth.

In one hand the old man held a tiny bird, cupped carefully. The bird, too, regarded Tarth. It cheeped once disdainfully.

The old man's other hand reached out. "My pipes," he demanded simply. "Ye must have met Aelrue."

Wordlessly Tarth handed over the pipes. The mage's fingers brushed his, and Tarth felt a brief tingle of raw power. He stood awed in the dimness of the cluttered chamber, as the old man spoke softly to the little bird in words Tarth did not understand. It cheeped again, briefly, and flew into the darkness at the back of the room.

When it was gone, the old man looked up. "Tea?" he asked, almost roughly. "Ye look dry." Without waiting for a reply, he called, "Tea, Lhaeo! For two."

He waved at an old barrel, atop which were stacked several wrinkled maps of Thay and the Utter East, the hues of their magical inks glowing faintly in the dimness.

"Toss those aside and sit ye," the old man commanded. "We may as well get started. Time not spent is not saved. Thy name?"

Tarth gave his first name, looking around for a place to set the maps and finding none. The old man sighed and waved a hand, and the maps wafted out of Tarth's grasp and glided out of sight behind towering stacks of parchment. At the same time, the two pipes, which had hung patiently in midair at the old man's shoulder, winked out and rose into the darkness, where they were lost to view.

Tarth sat hastily, leaning his staff against his shoulder.

Elminster nodded. "Elminster of Shadowdale," he replied. "Your business with me, lad?"

Tarth swallowed, and tried to look fearless and uncaring. "I seek training to further my mastery of the Art," he said softly. "If you are willing, and find my payment sufficient, I'd like to learn from you what I can, by the passing of the next moon."

The famous sage raised both his eyes this time to fix Tarth with a long, cool considering gaze. His eyes were very blue. Tarth soon felt uncomfortable, but dared not turn his own eyes away. Finally the Old Mage nodded slowly.

An instant later, Tarth found a steaming jack of tea floating silently down out of the darkness, past his nose. He closed a hand around it rather shakily.

"Ye mentioned payment," that dry, imperious voice rolled out. "Would it trouble ye overmuch, lad, to be more specific?"

"All-this!" Tarth said, thrusting forward his hand. "The Lost Ring of Murbrand!"

Silence fell. The expected astonishment was not forthcoming. Elminster's blue, clear eyes regarded him steadily. Out of the darkness overhead, another jack of tea floated down into the archmage's waiting hand. The old eyes never looked at it, but remained fixed on him. Expectantly.

Tarth rushed to fill the silence with excited words. "One of the greatest treasures of the lost magecraft of Myth Drannor! A thing famous in bards' songs and in old tales across the Realms! A-"

"A thing whose wielding is far beyond thy present powers," Elminster replied dryly. Tarth looked back at him, crestfallen.

"Well, yes," he admitted. "Yet its gaining was not easy… and I have Art enough to tell that it is a thing of great power, the greatest I have ever seen."

Elminster nodded. "So it is." He regarded Tarth steadily over the top of his jack as he drank. Silence grew and lengthened.

Tarth let his hand fall back to rest on his thigh. "Well?" he asked, suddenly afraid. The old man's gaze seemed dark and menacing and somehow angry. With cold certainty Tarth knew that the great archmage could probably seize the ring and destroy Tarth Hornwood utterly, in a very short and simple time. Those eyes held his, now seeming somehow amused. Death must look like this, so close…

"Is it sufficient?" Tarth heard himself asking, calmly and firmly.

"Aye-and nay," was the reply. " Tis a thing of worth enough, aye. But I don't want it. Ye keep it." A hint of a smile twisted the mustache. "Ye may grow to have power enough to use it. Ye may even need it."

Tarth stared briefly down at the ring upon his finger, remembering for an instant the crumbling, bony hand that had worn it. The rest of the ring's former owner had lain shattered and hidden beneath a huge fallen block of stone, in a deep and cobweb-shrouded crypt of Myth Drannor.

Tarth had not expected to keep die ring for long. He swallowed, suddenly afraid again and suspicious. "What do you want, then?"

"In return for thy training? Why, thy staff, of course," came the calm, dry voice.

Tarth's breath froze in his lungs for a long, trembling moment. The staff he bore, a plain spar of smooth-polished, shadowtop wood, was the most precious thing he owned.

Tarth's first tutor, in far-off Amphail, had given it to him long ago. Old Nerndel's Art had been feeble and forgetful with great age, but he had warned Tarth to keep the staff safe all his days. "It is a thing of great power," Nerndel had said. "Guard it well. Perhaps it will make you happier than it did me."

"My staff?" Tarth asked, heart sinking. "No. No, I cannot part with it. I will not! I refuse."

"The door, as I recall, lies just yonder," Elminster said dryly. "Ye found a way in… those bold feet of thine may serve to find a way out again."

"No!" Tarth said. "No, no-name some other price, some other payment… if you will. I've come so far…." He leaned forward. "Please? A service, perhaps? To ask that a wizard give up his staff is a very great asking-and what good is such a staff to you, a great archmage?"

"More importantly," Elminster asked quietly, "what good is such a staff, Tarth, to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Thy staff," the Old Mage demanded, "grows weaker and weaker as ye use it, does it not'"

After a few breaths of startled silence, Tarth nodded reluctantly.

"Ye, too," Elminster went on, "grow weaker and weaker in Art, Tarth Horn wood, as ye come to rely upon it more and more."

Tarth frowned. "You know my last name?"

Elminster grinned. "Aye. A while back, a friend of mine, young Nerndel-eh, old Nerndel he'd be, to ye-told me — he had chosen his heir-of-Art, a bright one. He asked me to look out for ye, if ye came this way."

"Then-then you'll train me?" Tarth asked, hope rising suddenly into his throat.

"Aye. In return for a service."

"I can keep my staff?"

"I did not say that. The service ye can do me, mageling is to destroy thy staff. Ye have come to depend on it overmuch, methinks, to have survived the perils of Myth Drannor and won that ring ye wave about so boldly. Tis time to learn to trust thine own power, without frozen fire to aid; thee. Thy service will be to undertake a simple but precise ritual, to bring about the destruction of thy staff."

"And if I refuse?"

Then ye must go," said the old man mildly. "On down. whate'er roads thy overconfident feet lead ye… until ye fall, as ye are sure to, to some brigand quick with a rock; or two, or a lone goblin creeping while ye sleep. No man who bears such power openly can have friends, nor trust companions overlong. If ye try, 'tis a cold and open grave ye'll find soon, lad, as someone else seizes thy baubles."

"I've not done poorly so far," Tarth said, nettled. "I can protect myself."

"Can ye?" came the soft response. "What defenses did ye prepare, then, before venturing into easy reach of my power?"

Tarth sat in silence, cold fear slithering within him^; again. The Old Mage's eyes gleamed steadily in the dimness, watching him.

Finally Tarth shook his head in defeat, and spread his hands. "Only the spells I carry."

"And thy staff, of course," Elminster added pointedly. "Come, lad-thy tea is growing cold. Have we agreement, or will ye walk?"

"If I destroy this staff," Tarth said, trying not to look at it, "do you promise to make me a more powerful wizard-and let me walk free?"

Elminster nodded. "Aye. I do so swear. Mark ye: Only by the unmaking of thy staff will ye give and find freedom and learn true power and happiness."

Tarth nodded, slowly and reluctantly, as his thoughts raced. "Then we have agreement," he said. A moment later, he added, "I must rejoin my companions-of-adventure for a few days, then I shall return."

Elminster nodded. "Aye, neglect not thy share of the loot," he said with a smile. Tarth smiled back, thinly, and drained his jack.

"My thanks for the tea," he said, getting up. Dust, disturbed, rose around him in a clinging cloud.

"The tea was the least of the things ye should be thanking me for," the Old Mage told him mildly, waving a finger. In slow silence the pair of empty jacks rose out of sight overhead. Uneasily Tarth nodded, and strode for the door a shade more hastily than he'd intended to. It opened for him by itself. He sighed and did not see Elminster smiling at his back.

[sigh] you don't hurry through this, do you?

If one does, it doesn't work. Like certain dealings in Hell.

Clever as ever, mind-slave. Mind the back edge of your own tongue doesn't slice you.

[silence, images flourished almost mockingly]

There came a knock upon Sarlin's door. Sarlin the Supreme heard it and rose in haste. Times had been hard of late, and coins all too few.

Tarth Hornwood stood outside, his face tanned and a ring gleaming on his finger. His eyes looked somehow older than they had when he'd visited Sarlin before. He'd been adventuring, surely.

"What do you want, Tarth?" Sarlin asked plainly.

Tarth regarded the old, evil sorcerer calmly and said as simply, "Business. And no tricks, this time."

Sarlin did not smile, but nodded. "Well, then: what'"

Tarth thrust forward the splendid staff he held, dark and smooth and straight. "I'd like you to make another of these."

Sarlin raised his eyebrows. "That could well take years," he began. "Do-"

"Not its powers," Tarth said quickly, "though it must bear a dweomer and be able to, say, bring forth radiance, and quell it again. I need a staff that looks like this one, so close that not even the greatest mage of the Realms could tell them apart."

Sarlin raised his eyebrows again. "Expensive," he said, after a moment.

Tarth nodded. "I'm willing to pay you with this," he said, extending the fist upon which the ring gleamed. "It is the Lost Ring of Murbrand."

Sarlin leaned forward to peer at it. "Truce?" he asked.

"Truce," Tarth agreed. Sarlin extended his hand, and Tarth put the ring into it. The old sorcerer examined it carefully, turning it in his fingers to read the runes Murbrand had put there long ago. It was unmistakable, or all the books of lore were wrong. He held in his hands a ring of power. Sarlin almost trembled with excitement.

But that was not his way. He merely raised his eyebrows again, and-slowly, reluctantly-handed the ring back. "This staff must be valuable to you," he said.

Tarth nodded. "Almost as valuable as the ring I'm offering," he replied pointedly, "to one who knows how to use it."

Sarlin grinned. "As you know, of course, how to wield the ring," he returned. "Give me the staff now and the ring when I've done, in exchange for the two staves. Come back four mornings from now."

Tarth raised his own eyebrows. "That soon?" Sarlin shrugged. "I am a master of what I do. You know that."

Tarth nodded. "You are. Agreement, then?" Sarlin nodded back, almost eagerly. "Agreement."

And now the revealing…or you'll pay in pain, mage…

"Ready, lad?" Elminster asked gently. Tarth nodded, face expressionless. The Old Mage waved his hand "Begin, then."

Tarth stood in the circle Elminster had prepared, deep in the forest near Shadowdale. On a tall, flat stone at its center lay the staff Tarth had brought here. Beside the staff lay a sharp knife.

Tarth stepped forward to stand over the stone. Sweat was suddenly cold upon his neck and forehead. He could feel the sage's watchful gaze like a weight upon his back. The young wizard breathed deeply, then shrugged and began the ritual Elminster had taught him.

It began with a spoken charm, soft and precise. Tarth pronounced it and carefully took up the knife.

As he did, his eyes fell upon the staff. Dark and smooth and gleaming, it was the familiar and comforting thing that had earned him the name "Thunderstaff" in Arabel. Half in derision that name had begun-but he had made it a term of respect. Now, if Elminster's will reigned, he would be leaving it all behind.

Tarth sighed again, forced down his irritation, and raised the knife, beginning the chant. Soft and light, to begin with. The knife caught the light and gleamed briefly. He raised his other hand to it and drew blood with a firm, deliberate stroke.

There was a cold tingling in his palm as the blood began to flow. Tarth stepped back and carefully drove the knife hilt-deep in the ground, whispering another charm in time with the chant. When he approached the stone again, blood had begun to drip from his fingers.

Carefully, still chanting, he moved his hand so that the drops fell upon the staff. "Ye have come for the wisdom of sages," Elminster had said to him. "Yet it alone is not enough. The blood of heroes also is called for, to win freedom. So ye must shed a little blood, mageling."

Tarth could feel the Old Mage watching him as he bled on the staff. Each drop that landed on stone or turf remained, but those that fell on the staff vanished utterly as they touched it.

Elminster had warned him, whatever happened, to keep on with the chant. Tarth did so, even when the staff began to glow on the stone before him. A faint red-gold radiance stole slowly into being down its length, grew brighter, and took on a white hue.

Tarth stepped back, as Elminster had instructed, and made his chanting louder and faster. He knew, without looking, that he bled no more. The magic was healing his hand.

The staff lifted an inch or so from the stone and began to hum as it floated in the air, glowing ever brighter.

The ritual required his tears now. Tarth stared at the staff, blinking and remembering all the adventures he'd survived these past few winters, staff in hand. Its magic was a shield against danger. He'd miss it.

The memories came fast now, and his chant wavered. He'd miss it indeed. Tears came to the young wizard's eyes. His throat grew thick as he recalled the comfortable weight of the staff in his hand, after many a battle. Sometimes he had almost thought it a living thing, a person.

Tears fell freely now. He moved forward as Elminster had told him to, so that his tears fell upon the glowing staff.

In answer, the staff pulsed brightly. The hum rose in a thrilling surge, into a singing sound. Slowly and majestically, the staff rose, turning in the air until it hung upright. The very air around it began to glow until it was surrounded by a bright aura. Tarth chanted on, fascinated and hopeful.

The staff rose above the stone, pulsing. Bright and then dim, bright and then dim again, its light almost faded entirely.

Behind the young wizard, at the edge of the circle, Elminster frowned. He crossed his arms as he stood watching.

The staff pulsed more quickly now, brighter and then completely dark before it became bright again. Its singing faded. Suddenly, it crumbled into nothing, and was gone, falling in ashes upon the stone.

Tarth's chant ended uncertainly. In the sudden silence, he turned to look at the Old Mage, almost angrily, "Is that all? It seems a waste!"

Elminster smiled sadly. "The waste, young master of Art," the sage said softly, "was thine, in spending the ring for so little." He gestured, and there was a sudden flash in the air above the stone.

A staff hung there, dark and gleaming-and very familiar. It was Tarth's staff, the real one-that Tarth had left safely hidden in a study-cell in the nearest temple of Mystra, guarded by the most potent wards Tarth knew. Tarth gaped at it.

"The true staff, young hero," Elminster said gently. "Honesty is best, even in magic. But that is a lesson one must teach oneself. Start on it whene'er ye feel old and wise enough." As he spoke, the staff turned in the air and glided down to rest upon the stone in utter silence, the knife leaping from the turf to join it. Elminster spread his hands questioningly, his eyes on Tarth's, then in an instant vanished, leaving only empty air behind.

Tarth stared at the fern-clad bank where the Old Mage had stood. Then he looked slowly all around, trembling. He was alone in the forest circle.

The path he had come here by ran invitingly away into green stillness amid old trees. Tarth looked down it and swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He took one hurried step toward the path, then looked back. His staff lay gleaming upon the stone. Tarth stood wavering an instant, then ran back and snatched it up.

Its familiar weight was reassuring in his hand. Tarth knew it all too well: It was his own staff, indeed, brought here by Elminster's magic. The young wizard held it raised for a moment as though to blast an unseen foe, then turned and dashed down the path.

As he ran, Elminster's parting words ran through Tarth's head. A lesson one must teach oneself… start on it whenever old and wise enough… Tarth came to a halt, panting. The staff was heavy in his hands. Sweat ran slowly down into his eyes.

Tarth blinked until he could see again. He stared wildly around at the trees. No one stood watching. There was no sound but his own breathing. He thought briefly of the spell in his memory that could take him in an instant far from this place, and it stirred in his mind. Tarth thrust it from his thoughts, stared down at the staff in his hands, and turned around. He started to walk slowly and deliberately back to the circle.

The knife lay on the stone. The clearing around remained empty and still. Tarth walked into the circle again and stopped. His breathing was loud and ragged in his ears. Raising the staff, the young wizard looked at it long and lovingly, feeling its heft and power in his hands. Then he sighed and stepped to the stone. It took a very long time to let go of the staff after he'd laid it down.

White-lipped, Tarth Hornwood stood alone in the circle for an even longer time. Then he stepped forward and softly spoke the charm that began the ritual all over again. Reaching for the knife, he never saw Elminster reappear on the bank behind him.

The Old Mage smiled and nodded approvingly.

The staff rose again. This time Tarth's tears flowed so freely that he could scarcely see the staff through them. He was filled with an aching sense of loss and a wrenching, weak feeling that grew worse in waves, in time with the pulsing of the staff.

It climbed above the stone. The singing was loud in Tarth's ears. Suddenly it flared into blinding brilliance. Tarth cried out, breaking off the chant. He fell helplessly to his knees amid the singing, and slid sideways to the turf, and beyond….

[Growl] how much longer, wizard? How much fire-lashed longer?

Cool air whispered past his brow. There were gentle hands on him… two, three-had the old sage grown more hands?

Tarth blinked and found himself looking at a clear blue sky and dancing leaves overhead. He was lying on his back on uneven ground. The aroma of warm tea came from somewhere very near at hand.

"With us again, lad?" Elminster's familiar voice rolled out. Tarth turned to look at the Old Mage, opening his mouth to reply. It stayed open for some time in utter astonishment.

The Old Mage was sitting on a stone, tea in hand. He wore a worn and patched cotton under robe above his battered old boots. Sitting with him was a slim, gray-eyed lady regarding Tarth with interest. She held two jacks of steaming tea in her hands and was clad only in Elminster's flowing outer robe.

"Well met," she said, in a low, gentle voice.

Elminster grinned. "Tarth Thunderstaff," he said with gallant grandeur, indicating the lady, "meet thy staff. The Lady Nimra. Known in her day as Nimra Ninehands, after a spell she favors."

His grin broadened. "Ye've been draining her strength to work thy Art these long years, so I had ye give much of thine back to her, ere ye destroyed her entirely. Now, I've wasted time enough. Evenfeast awaits ye both at my tower, when ye find the way thither. I imagine ye'll have much to say to one another."

He chuckled at Tarth's stunned expression. "Now, lad," he reproved, " 'tis not every day a wizard has a chance to speak so freely to his staff. Use that glib tongue of thine." With that, Elminster waved a hand, and was gone.

Wordlessly the lady held a jack out to Tarth.

He took it gingerly, managing not to spill any on himself, and cleared his throat. "Ah… well met!" he began uncertainly. A wavering smile spread itself hesitantly across his face…

Gah! Loving again? You humans!

Much later that night, Tarth sat again with the Old Mage amid the dusty stacks of parchment. "How long have you known about her?" the young wizard asked curiously, gesturing upwards. The Lady Nimra slept in Elminster's bedchamber above them.

"Nimra was imprisoned in the form of a staff over seven hundred winters ago, by a rival in Myth Drannor," Elminster said slowly. "We never freed her, for her imprisonment let loose a number of fell creatures that had been in her power. They searched everywhere for her and would have found and destroyed her in the end, if she'd walked the Realms in her own form. Her imprisonment was the best disguise she could have found."

"What happened to these creatures that search for her?"

"Destroyed in their turas, down the years," the Old Mage replied. "Nerndel slew more than one of them."

"Master Nerndel? How did he come to have the staff?" Tarth asked in astonishment.

Elminster grinned. "He was Nimra's rival. It was his trap that imprisoned her. He hoped one day to free her and woo her-but I laid spells on the staff, so that I could find it where'er it might be hid and so that its making could not be undone while Nimra's enemies yet lived. I also took from Nerndel the spells he used to entrap her- so ye are stuck with her, young Master Mage."

"Stuck with her?" Tarth echoed, not understanding.

"Aye. She owed Nerndel six services, and the first he set her to do was to train him. The second was to undertake a certain ritual. It trapped her in the form of a staff, while her first task lay incomplete. She is not free of the web of spells he laid until she completes the training-of ye, since ye are Nerndel's heir."

"Me?" Tarth asked, dumbfounded. "But what then?"

Elminster shrugged. "That is between the two of ye. She has served ye these past few years, willingly, even if ye knew it not, and I think likes ye. Thy ways may well am together a long time yet."

"Together," Tarth said wonderingly, looking up at the ceiling. "But how should I treat her? What do I say to her? Should I try to make her do me the services that remain? If I try, what will she think of me? Need I fear her-ah, attacking me?"

Elminster smiled slowly and spread his hands. "In this, ye must be your own guide. Ye have already shown that ye can take the proper course, alone."

Tarth stared at him. Then his eyes narrowed suddenly. "You did agree to teach me until the passing of the next moon. Tell me, then, what I want to know!"

Elminster nodded. "I agreed, aye. Yet I fear I can help thee little, Tarth. I know not the answers to any of thy questions."

"You are said to be the wisest of living sages, in most fields!" Tarth protested. "One who knows all the answers!"

They heard a light step upon the stair. Tarth turned and stared at the Lady Nimra, who smiled at him. Tarth looked deep into her clear blue eyes and was lost.

"Only fools know all the answers," Elminster told him quietly. He silently vanished, the dust swirling up around him.

"And so, Master Tarth," Nimra said softly, as she sat where the Old Mage had been, "your questions are your own to answer, and your choices your own to make, and you must live out the results. That is what being a mage is, after all."

Tarth nodded, and cleared his throat. "Ah, uh-well met!" he began brightly.

She started to laugh….

That's your "powerful magic"? You claw mo hard at my patience, little wizard!

How does it feel when i do the same to your chain? And make it take fire at the same time! Hey? Eh?

[screaming, raw and wild and in vain, dying away]

Oh, no! Nor that easily! A uttle healing and a jolt awake, and you're ready to taste torment again.'

[roaring diabolic laughter, screams rising]