Elminster in Hell

Chapter Twenty-Four

"May I present," the Masked One said in amused tones, handing the lovely gowned lady forward with a flourish, "ThorneiraThalance, now Acting Crown Regal of Aglarond."

Phaeldara looked up from the throne. "Not for another three breaths, she isn't.And didn't the Crowned Fury say to just call ourselves regent now, and abandon all these titles that give envoys and heralds such fits?"

"That's why I do it," the Masked One replied with a chuckle."Three breaths, my right haunch! You should have been up off there at least two breaths ago!"

The courtiers and envoys ranged along the walls leaned closer so as not to miss a moment or nuance of merriment.

Phaeldara rose, tall and elegant, and said plaintively to Evenyl, who sat on a lounge floating nearby, "Was ever a woman so wronged?"

The fourth sometime-regent looked up with an innocent smile and held up her hand with fingers spread to use for counting items off. "Oh, let me think.There was-"

A flash and rumble shook the throne room. The regals whirled around as courtiers gasped and murmured along the walls. They all fell silent at what they saw.

The Witch-Queen of Aglarond stood in the center of the chamber, as naked as the day she was born-naked, battered, and entwined.

Her hair swirled and writhed around her shoulders as if it were alive as she glared around the room. Her eyes were two dark and deadly stars. If wearing nothing but smears of soot and dung and blood bothered her, she showed no sign of it.

Her arms were around the waist of a bony, bearded, filth-covered old man with stumps where his forearms should have been. He was sagging, bent over limply like a child's broken doll; it was clear only her grip kept him from falling. Firmly she caught hold of his hair and laid his head back over her shoulder. Then she smiled down the room into the astonished faces of the regals.

"To coin a phrase," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said dryly, "We're back."

As if in reply, explosions of black-tinged fire burst into roiling existence behind her, amid shrieks from the watching courtiers. A brimstone reek filled the room. Grinning devils strode forth from the flames, long-horned and bat-winged, tusked and terrible. Their talons stretched out to snatch the Simbul and the man in her arms.

"Geryon, Overduke of Hell, sends us," one of them said smugly, "to fetch you back to your deaths-in long, long torment!"

The Simbul whispered a word. Lightning raged from the tiles under the devils' hooves to the ceiling high above and back again.There were faint cries-then nothing but empty tiles and the oily smoke of diabolic bodies collapsing.

The Witch-Queen smiled through those remnants.

Another rank of devils emerged from the flames. They wore rather smaller smiles.

"Did you really believe seizing me in my own lair was going to be easy? Here I stand not alone."

A tongue of blue-white flame leaped up from her empty hand. Behind her the regals, with set, determined faces, held out their own hands to cup more feeble blue flames.

"Neither, witch," said a courtier loudly, lifting his own hand and letting swirling magic fill it,"do they!"

"Aye," said another, farther down the hall, throwing aside his cloak. "For Thay!"

"Yes," came a third voice, hard and cold. "Let the queen and Aglarond fall together, for the greater glory of Thay!"

Eyes blazing, an old courtier snatched a dagger from his belt and thrust it into the throat of the revealed Red Wizard beside him.The room erupted in shouts and spells.

The doors by the throne burst open. Thaergar of the Doors strode in with a bright new sword drawn. He stared open-mouthed at the tumult, then snatched and hurled a dagger from his belt-straight back out the door at the alarm gong.

He charged forward, raising his blade. Red flames burst out of the air in front of him, hurling him to the floor. He glared up at that dark magic in time to see a huge, ruby-red devil stride out of it, fork in one hand and barbed whip in the other, to loom over Phaeldara, foremost of the regals.

"Pretty meat," it gloated, reaching for her.

Thaergar of the Doors and Phaeldara stared at the pit fiend, the Red Wizards and charging devils beyond, and deadly magics singing and snarling everywhere.

"Oh, dung" they gasped in unintentional unison.

***

The air above a table commenced to shimmer. Tiny silver and blue sparks whirled out of thin air to race around each other in a small, tight sphere.

Their radiance made a head snap up, and two eyes glared at them in astonishment and alarm.

A moment later, a chair went over with a crash. The man who'd been sitting in it crossed the room with surprising speed for someone of his age. He snatched down two crossed, rusty daggers from beneath a shield on the wall. In his hands they twisted and became a wand and a scepter. Pointing them both at the whirling lights, the Royal Magician of Cormyr snarled, "How, by all the whims of Holy Mystra, did that get through the wards? And what is it?"

In obliging answer, the whirling lights sank a little and unfolded themselves downward to the floor in a cascade of silver. They formed a wraithlike figure: a female elf of tiny, nigh-perfect beauty, who looked perhaps nine years old-except for her eyes, which were as old and wise as those of a goddess… or at least a Chosen who has seen many centuries.

Vangerdahast lowered his wand and scepter. "Who… are you?" he asked hoarsely.

"Most call me the Srinshee," she replied. "You and I are both needed, right now, in the throneroom of Aglarond."

"Aglarond? Why?"

"Elminster is there, embattled and in urgent need of us both-and Mystra bids us come," she said simply, and held out her hand.

Vangerdahast stared at her for a moment. An almost fierce joy flashed across his face. He ran across the room like an eager young man. "Yes!" he snarled, eyes bright. "Oh, yes!”

***

Men shouted, ran, and snatched out swords in the throneroom of Aglarond. Spells crashed and devils pounced.They also reeled, screamed, and died.

Blistering fire burst among shrieking courtiers. Men who'd been enthusiastically plunging daggers into a Red Wizard vanished into crackling columns of ash.

Among the terrified sprinting and shoving, a serving-maid let fall her silver tray with a crash as a devil's talons clawed at her bodice. Thrusting a slender arm, she drove her hand right through the grinning pit fiend. It vanished with a roar of blue flames and a terrified shriek.

A Red Wizard stared at the maid in astonishment as she reached for the next nearest devil, her eyes aglow, and snapped,"This is quite enough."

There was a double flash this time. Maid and devil vanished together… but where Mystra had been, nine stiver stars floated, tracing an upright circle around a blue flame.

There was barely time for all the color to drain out of the Red Wizard's face before that flame died and the stars rushed to the floor and vanished. Where each touched the tiles, a startled being suddenly stood, staring around at the raging battle.

"Khelben Blackstaff," the Red Wizard gasped, eyes bulging,"and-the Seven! All of them!" He was to be forgiven for not announcing the arrival of the mages Vangerdahast and a wraithlike lady elf, where the last two stars touched down-

A moment later Khelben lashed three devils with howling bolts of lightning. A certain Red Wizard, caught in the wrong place, ceased to care about anything ever again.

Rage blazed on the face of the Lord Mage of Waterdeep. With a growl, he tossed his black staff into the air. It hung there, motionless and horizontal, crackling with magic. Many of the beams and bolts snarling across the room veered to it and blazed in harmless spell chaos.

That left the air clear enough for everyone to see the Simbul, on her knees shielding Elminster. She thrust up her hand to send silver fire out to all of her sisters. In turn from each of them a beam spat forth, vaporizing any devil it touched.

"Sister," Dove gasped, "what're you doing? Mystra forbids-"

"Not now she doesn't," the Witch-Queen of Aglarond snapped grimly."Behold!"

Her hand this time pointed to the shimmering air above Khelben's staff.

The trapped, roiling spells were rapidly being transformed into a shining spider web of magic. Glowing, ever-shifting lines of power rapidly rilled the air. The ghostly form of the Srinshee raced along and among them. The web winked as it swiftly grew, and was already almost too bright to look at.

"The Weave!" the Simbul snapped. She swung her arm around to point to the entry arch, where shadows gathered. "And our foe!"

No, not shadows-a web of dark lines that mirrored the Weave. Strangers were entering through the archway below it: mages wielding wands and staves, who chanted, "Shar! Shar!"

"An anti-Weave?" one of the older courtiers gasped."Can there be such a thing?"

A dark-robed courtier beside him gave the gaping man a snakelike smile-and slapped a tentacle around the elder man's neck, snapping it with casual ease. "Indeed there can," he remarked almost merrily to the toppling corpse. "And some of us who walk in shadows see our bright future in it!"

All down the chamber men and women and devils were dying as spell wrestled with spell. Magic slew with terrifying speed. Three devils pounced on the Simbul, trying to wrench her head off. One frantically thrust talons into her mouth to stop her shouting spells.

The dirty, trembling man she'd been torn away from lay forgotten on the tiles.A titanic crash nearby roused him to wakerulness. He peered around at the spell battle, shook his head in disgust or despair… and started to crawl forward. He passed among sprawled bodies and the rubble falling from the ceiling. The walls of the room were rippling, goaded by wild, clashing magic.

The Simbul struggled against determined devils. Bolts of dark magic spat from the Shar-worshipers and smote the tiles around the crawling man, showering him with stone shards.

He seemed not to notice, but struggled on, slithering across the room in a manner not all that different from the maggots of Avernus.

"Who-?" shouted a Sharran mage, as he caught sight of the crawling man."Stop him!"

That cry came too late for those who trust in dark dreams. Elminster Aumar, who long ago had herded sheep in the forgotten land of Athalantar, fell forward. His battered, pain-racked face touched the silver tray that had fallen from the hands of Mystra.

A roar echoed around the throne room. Everyone stopped and turned. Even spell blasts and the screams of the dying hushed. It was the roar of massive magic unleashed, Mystra's power left behind for her Chosen.

In its blue, raging heart stood a man, a wizard made whole again, a figure of white fire tinged with blue around its edges.

He strode from where the tray had been, swaying in the throes of power that made the very air throb.

Beams lanced out from Elminster's trembling fingers and glaring eyes-to smite devil and Red Wizard, Malau-grym and Sharran alike, consuming them in sighing instants until none were left in the throneroom.

The Old Mage leveled both his hands to point at the shadowy web filling the end of the room. Blinding flames of blue-white and silver roared forth from his palms.

The explosion that followed left only bright sky and crumbling ashes in that end of the palace. Elminster blinked at the destruction with the same awe felt by the others still alive in the throneroom. In the ringing silence that followed, the shattered roof above them groaned loudly and started to fell.

Blocks of stone rained down, ponderous and deadly. If it hadn't been for bright bolts fired so frantically by the crouching Seven and the blasts emitted by the Black-staff, the roof might have claimed the lives of everyone in that place.

Instead, dust rained down, thick and choking, bringing with it an almost ominous quiet.

***

The sky was darkening into purple dusk before true peace came to the dust-shrouded throne of Aglarond. Gone were the courtiers, corpses, and those sent by Mystra. The throne room stood open to the sky. Fallen stone blocks lay strewn here and there beneath the winking stars.

Elminster and the Simbul stood together in each other's arms.Three regals knelt a little distance away, awaiting their queen's command. The fourth regal was missing, but they kept their thoughts away from her face and name. There would be time enough for grieving yet.

"Oh, my love," the Simbul said fiercely, "When I thought I'd lost you…"

"Gently," Elminster murmured, kissing her nose and brow and ears." 'Tis done-and hear this, lady of my heart: I vow henceforth to spend more time with thee and let Faerun run more of its own affairs without my meddling."

"That shall be my vow, too," the Queen of Aglarond said in a trembling voice. She reached for his lips with her own.

"Well said," hissed a voice from rubble nearby.

Phaeldara lay trapped with Thaergar of the Doors, pinned under a slab of roof thrice their combined size. It had been prevented from crushing them outright only by the twisted ruin of his sword and a shield he'd snatched from the wall in the heart of the fray. Even so, the weight upon them prevented their calling out. "Let this… be a vow both of you… keep!"

"Aye," Thaergar gasped, wincing as Phaeldara squirmed beside his shattered arm."I cleave… most heartily… to the same view!"

The three kneeling regals heard them and shrieked- cries that brought Elminster and the Simbul running.

As the spells that would free them were hastily chanted, the fainting man and the woman under the fallen stone thought they heard something else.

A strange echoing mirth that just might have been a god and goddess of magic chuckling, not so far away…