Elminster in Hell

Chapter Four

The stench was unbelievable. Bones and blood-blood welling up from the ground and flowing In rivulets over the sharp rocks, as foul gases drifted over everything. A figure moved amid the tattered vapors: a lone, naked human crawling painfully down a hillside, like a shattered crab, headed he knew not where.

Elminster's fingers were bleeding stumps, torn by dozens of razor-sharp rocks, but the mental lashings kept him crawling, aimless and trembling. Stingfly after stingfly landed on his trembling flesh and drank deeply of his blood before leaving its eggs under the wizard's skin. With but one arm to lean on, the Old Mage had no way to dislodge them. Not that he could do more than groan and fling himself over on his back. He crushed one buzzing, squalling stingfly that way, but the others all sprang clear- to pounce on El's belly instead, ere he could right himself.

Ahead, the land fell away in a field of tortured rock to a gorge out of which rose darkly boiling plumes of smoke. Maggots as long as three men and as sinuous as snakes fell from some of those drifting clouds, to flop and slither across the rocks. Most seemed able to smell where the blood was strongest and glided thence, to a place where pale, amorphous bulks moved. Lemures, glistening palely, fed from a small pit of maggots-oblivious to the fact that other maggots burrowed into their own rear extremities.

An inspiring sight-not that Elminster cared much where he went in this land of death and cruelty. Perils loomed or lurked everywhere. Firebursts bloomed over distant mountains. From time to time spinagons and worse rose on flapping wings to cross the air above the gorge and glare hungrily at the struggles below.

Lower to the ground undulated something that looked like a lacework of odd jaws and claws and eyes, joined by ropes of mauve flesh. A hooked spear reached up to tug it brutally down to a waiting devil below. The fray that followed was brief ere the weird flying thing rose into the air again, larger and heavier than before.

It rose, drifted Elminster's way, and veered at him, descending in a swift dive with its many-toothed mouths swiveling to the fore. Lower it rushed, jaws agape, knowing its prey had nowhere to run.

The Old Mage watched it grimly. Would Nergal manifest power through him to defend the body he'd so shattered… or just let him be torn apart and devoured-salvaging only his head?

The many-jawed creature swept down, very close, trailing streams of green saliva. Dozens of black and gold eyes met his, gleaming with hungry anticipation. Well, his answer would not be long in coming…

Back and forth I go, Elminster, over the memories you how up before me like shields and yet find nothing of what I see. Where are the secrets or silver fire? Where are the spells and spellbooks and hidden rings and scepters and all, glowing with power I can use? Well?

The archdevil rummaged again, clawing aside memory' after memory. He shouldered impatiently through the dark, vaulted caverns of Elminster's memories.

An elf queen stands atop a cliff. The tatters of her sword-hewn, blood-drenched gown flap in the evening breeze. As she looks grimly out over a land the sun sets on, her arms cling to the broad, armored shoulders of a grim dwarf. He clutches her and weeps into her stomach. His bloody axe dangles by its war strap from one hairy, weary arm…

Gahh! You've centuries of such dross! What care I for mortals now dust and realms long fallen?

A shining-eyed young sorceress delights in her first great casting. Her face glows as brightly as any lamp. She sweeps the brown-withered, skeletal body of her lich master into an enthusiastic embrace, showering his crumbling lips with kisses…

Always an eye for beauty, eh? Now to me, weakness is beautiful-a chink to he thrust through, a good grip on a we to be used. Yesss…

Grim-faced warriors lean on their axes and broadswords. Flat menace fills their eyes as they watch wizards walk past, Elminster among them. One bladesman stirs too much. A cowled figure whirls to fling up an open hand. A green, glowing sigil bursts into being right in front of the snarling warrior, freezing him in midswing. The mages walk away, and the warriors glower silently…

Here Nergal wandered, and there, rummaging through dusty darkness where small things scuttled and large things slept. The devil growled as he came on. El's lurking awareness stole away before him, ducking here and crouching there in mind shadows, memories like cloaking webs in his wake.

Answer me, human! Do you think you can hide in your own mind?

A world away, fangs bit and claws pounced, raking and clutching. El screamed, or tried to, sagging back as red pain flared in the dark vaults.

Nergal made a sound of irritated impatience, and lines of blue fire raced here and there through the darkness. There were singing sounds and echoes of what might have been snarls or shrieks. The claws and jaws were gone again.

Dimly, El felt himself collapsing onto sharp, uncaring stones.

Answer me, elminster! Heed my call, damn you!

Damned am I, indeed. Cringing here with my memories flowing away from me like water, slipping between my fingers to be gone, gone forever…

Indeed. Weep and wail, wizard! Weep and wail.

[sudden vicelike mental probes, closing like claws]

But first, show me Mystra sharing these memories with you. How came they into your mind? How? Let me see! show me Now!

Dark eyes swim in dreams. Visions flood in, jolting a drowsing Old Mage awake. He sits bolt upright in wonder in his bedchamber, his eyes leaking blue-white fire. The flames reflect in the eyes of the one beside him-smiling Storm in early days, and later the fiery Witch-Queen of Aglarond. Her hair stirs around her slender shoulders like silver blades hungry for a foe, since…

Yes, yes. Women you've had and to spare! let me in, wizard!

Not watching your face after she mind-touches you! Show mb.'

[blinding, blue-white fire]

Aarggh! You dare?

[mind lash red pain black agony dripping purple ruin]

Stop your screaming! Think you're the only self-important mortal i've mind-readed?

[reluctant healing]

There. Stop your gaaies, or taste worse.

No game. Ye wanted to see Mystra's mind-touch, and that's what I showed ye. The fire undying.

She comes only in dreams, and you see the memories she umts only when she's gone? Bah! Deceive me not! She must impart directly or leave you uncontrolled.

Aye, so she does, most of the time. When we speak directly, I gain images of the moment, not memories worth sharing.

Nothing more? Ever?

[glimpse]

Aha!

[confused images, swift racing]

hah! what was that?

[dwindling down, devil-ridden, to one brightness… of Mystra, long, long ago, in the land of Elminster's youth-]

Eyes that swam with stars stared into his. Ehninster fought for breath as lips that were both fire and ice kissed his throat, moved to his shoulder, and bit gently. Silver fire flowed from that wound. It roiled in the blue-white flame that was her hair, and in her hands, and in a regal cloak flowing endlessly from her.

In the air they drifted, a blue-white star high above Athalantar; El caught a glimpse of its flickering lantern fires far below, as they rolled together.

"Your defiant tenderness, El-aahh, I could drink of it forever. Give, Chosen of mine. Give unto Mystra."

"Gladly," Elminster growled, young and shining-eyed and supple.

As they surged amid the fire, memories that were not his own flooded into his mind. Images whirled, crashed, and raced in a welter of toppling towers and dragons locked in biting battle. Earth trembled. Rock shivered and rose into lofty peaks. Haughty mages brightened the sky with spells…

So, her remembrances leak into you when your minds are joined? She must mean to so shark, or you serve a weak goddess indeed….

[weeping, falling from light into darkness, lost and alone]

Oh, stop that! You may have loved a goddess and lived, but if you defy me yor are going to die! Show me more of the silver fire, flowing into you! Yes! Yesss!

[mental probes lancing forth brutally, transfixing bright memory]

[weeping, shimmering tears, yielding]

Soft summer stars shone above Myth Drannor. El drifted thoughtfully beneath, looking down on magnificent, glowing spires. They were soon to fall, if Starym deceit and o'erreaching pride and dangerous meddling went unchecked. All this beauty to be lost…

As Netheril before it, said the thrilling voice in the depths of his mind. Blue-white fire kindled in the air around him. It is the way of things, most precious Chosen.

"Holy Mystra," Elminster whispered. The fire deepened and darkened to a blue-black scattering of countless tiny stars-her most private self. "I am most glad to see ye. I have been mournful and lonely."

I, too. Those eyes he could fall into, forever, opened in the air before him, dragging him in. Let us comfort each other, bodies and minds.

Silver fire coiled within the floating man, leaping up in quickening excitement to meet the greater flame that had birched it. Stars shaped slender arms and lips, trailing away in dark glory as the flow of images began. Mind met mind. Silver fire rose and rushed back and forth, swifter and swifter. With a gladsome cry like a proud trumpet, Elminster Aumar shouted his own name aloud to cling to himself… Aye, aye, it came…

[fire, white and furious, overwhelming all, soaring up to bright, blinding glory]

Abruptly the fire was gone, and Elminster was wincing on rocks beneath a blood-red sky. A raw, wordless scream shredded the air of Hell behind him.

Lesser devils whirled up into the sky like bats flooding out of a cave at dusk. They winged toward the sound of shrieking agony, eager to see the mighty fallen.

Weak and sick, the one-armed old man rolled himself into a crevice. He pulled the ashen bones of some long-fallen devil over him. Its grotesque horned skull grinned at him with its eternal stare. If fair fortune or the grace of Mystra were with him, he'd now have no Nergal to protect him against the talons of passing baatezu.

Aye, it had come to that-rejoicing at the possibility of lying unprotected and alone in Avernus.

Closing his eyes, Elminster wrapped himself in that wry thought and descended again into the dark vaults of memory, seeking Nergal in his mind. The outcast devil had already shown himself to be a brute, with wits scarce swifter than a cunning sellsword of Faerun. If a mere memory of Mystra's mind-touch caused him such pain, perhaps he was weak enough that a Chosen of Mystra-even a weak and exhausted one-might wrest free of him.

Cautiously El skulked through his mind, seeking the place that was a purple ruin-the part of his mind that was forever gone. The ruin was spreading-

There, amid a blood-red glow, and riven shards of memories, he found Nergal. Hulking shoulders, barbed and mottled gray, tentacles stiff with still-fresh pain, great taloned hands fumbling blindly….

[Pain-fury of the Nine, what pain! So that was what goddesses could do… and deceitful wizards…]

Cautiously, El knelt. He called forth the tiniest amount of silver fire. With one fingertip, he traced a line on the worn and dusty stone. The line smoked as he seared his way across the floor of his memories, yielding yet more remembrances so as to keep well away from his shuddering captor. Around this pillar of things best forgotten, and this one, of regrets, then quickly down this dark way, soft and swift…

What befalls? Mortal, what are you doing?

Now across this chamber, answering not, and down the steps beyond, hurrying, with walls trembling to the left, where the archdevil stirs…

What are you doing?

Answer not, but race now, trailing silver fire in a bright and rending line, down more steps and left here, threading through the pillars and into the arch beyond-blast, but it grows light, red and bright ahead, and he's waiting-Close hand on silver fire, will it down, sink into the stones, become dark and silent, a statue in this hall of statues. Brood, cold and silent. Be stone. Be not there. Be lost and forgotten.

Archdevils tread and slither both. Slow slither and footfall. Heavy, not hurrying. He comes. Footfall. Closer. Be stone. Slowly he comes. Slowly and carefully. Wary now, are we, Most Mighty of Avernus?

Footfall. Scrape of talon on stone.

Elminster, risk. I know you.

Stone silence. Pain will come no matter what, so be stone, and let rage blind him.

[ice-cold probe, slow and sharp and deliberate, thrusting home]

[writhing, twisting agony] yes. deceive me not, little sneaking creature or silver fire. nekgal was proud in hell when athalantak was yet unborn.

[pain pain pain]

[grim satisfaction, Nergal's claim echoing tlirough a shattered mind, mortal mage writhing and drooling, rising up in Avernus like a grinning idiot, shedding bones]

An abishai loomed, claws outstretched, fanged mouth grinning, black wings and certain death-

Red and purple fire blossomed in the fiend's gaping jaws, and its head exploded, spattering Elminster with wet foulness and shaking him to full awareness of Avernus around him. He stood in the crevice he'd sought to hide in. The headless body of the abishai flopped on the stones in front of him, muscles still trying to make it fly. Beyond, a huge dragon flew through the sky, black and terrible. It snapped at fleeing spinagons like a shark racing through a shoal of silverfin. Fire rose from the side of a black crag off to his left-

One less abishai to tear apart my toy. Be grateful, wizard. I've not slain you yet.

I made no attack on ye. When ye seize on my memories, they are what they are; I cannot change them. Ye felt what I did, then.

Impressive. No wonder you stand and defy me.

Elminster was very careful to keep still and silent in the crevice and in his mind.

A joining of minds, and memories shared deliberately. It binds your loyalty anew and imparts ecstasy, until you become addicted to the divine touch and will do anything to feel it again.

Elminster bowed his head. That's one way of seeing it, aye.

[grim grin] can't you simply say i'm right, little man?

Mystra would see it differently, El said with as much mental dignity as he could muster, [image of arms crossed, body drawn up, chin lifted]

She certainly kred defiance into you, or chose you because of it. Which makes you both fools.

[sudden mental probe]

[wince]

[bright image, after image, after image]

So, no such unions with she who is Mystra now.

Shared thought: Which means no trace linkage remains that might let Mystra reach through her Chosen and do harm in Hell.

[relief] So, little man, let's get to that silver fire.

Sharp pain, and then numbness. Elminster reeled in the crevice. A maggot taller than he had reared up and sunk its fangs into his left shoulder. Its glistening body was undulating across his chest as it gnawed its way into him…

Writhing in pain, he tried to claw at it, but Nergal's laughter was all around him now.

Maggot-ridden! Suits you, treacherous mortal! Now, up out of that crevice and craw! yes, that's it!

Staggering, El found himself walking across broken rock again, the weight of the maggot that was now wrapped around him-and questing its way hungrily inside him- forcing him to lurch and falter.

My magic will keep you alive, honored guest. However, i regret to announce that you will suffer. [gusts of laughter]

adventure, little man, is where you find it. My venture will be on through your mind, more cautiously than before. Yours will be a litter stroll through hell.

Fear not. I'll keep you alive. I want that silver fire.

[pain, pain falling sharply, spreading pain, maggot tearing and thrashing]

Up, little man. There… Magic's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Now, let us seek your own early days, creature of mystra.

And adventure there. Show me an early time when you worked with others, so that i can see mystra's hand at work shaping you.

[friends' faces, castle battlements, a scudding moon, dark alley and drawn sword…]

There. Snow me, Elminster!

[different battlements, different faces, one swimming to the fore: a bearded wizard, fat and frowning, lurching along full of importance…]

Yes, that one will do! Show me!

Hear me, Vangerdahast. For the love of the Lady we both serve, hear me.

Stop mind-muttering, mage! Show me!

[images, whirling up brightly, unfolding…]

"Th-through here, Lord Mage M-most High," the mouselike Keeper of the Vaults quavered.

"Yes, yes, yes," Vangerdahast replied irritably. Strangely enough, having laid his own share of protective enchantments on the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers, albeit years ago, and being the only court official to often consult its contents, he did have a fair idea of where so vast and central a chamber was. As if he hadn't enough important worries right now, what with-

He stopped and stiffened, his mouth dropping open at what he saw. A moment later, he firmly closed it… far too late to escape the notice of the Keeper. The little man didn't quite dare to let a smirk show on his face but couldn't keep it out of his suddenly triumphant eyes.

"Leave us," the Royal Magician snapped, "and close the doors behind you."

He did not bother to look at the hastening courtier, and did not move a muscle until the huge and heavy bronzed double doors boomed closed behind him… and he was alone with the thing.

The thing that should not have been there.

His predecessors, generations of War Wizards under their command, and a rare few visiting mages deserving of such trust had cast spell after crawling and flickering spell on the walls, floors, and ceiling of the hall and the rooms surrounding it. Defensive magics, all, designed to foil each new method of scrying or translocation or other means of access. Growing thus over the centuries, they formed a complicated web that no man alive knew or could unravel without months of work and considerable personal peril.

Vangerdahast himself had overlaid the existing magics with several subtle misdirections designed to foil all but the most exacting users of wish spells. He had also cast far less subtle backlash enchantments that would twist intruding spells-unless preceded by a secret key-into paralysis, feeblemind, and smashing-blow effects against their casters. He would be loath to send even a magic missile at the thing protruding from the floor right now, lest each of its pulses come back at him.

The Royal Magician let out the breath he hadn't until then noticed he was holding. He took a few cautious steps to one side and peered at the mystery that had appeared in the hall.

A convulsed male human hand-long-fingered, bereft of the rings that had left pale bands of flesh, and with a few dark hairs adorning its back-protruded from the glossy-smooth marble of the vault floor. The forty-foot-square slab weighed many tons. It seemed that the owner of the hand was now entombed in that slab, for the hand did not look severed.

Vangerdahast had a sudden urge to give it a good kick to make sure, but royal magicians of Cormyr don't grow old and fat by undertaking stupid acts. Wherefore he did nothing more than peer around the hall until he was sure nothing else was out of place or missing He circled the hand, which hadn't moved in the slightest, and grew no wiser.

The Royal Magician let himself out. He sternly ordered the anxious Keeper and the ring of stone-faced Purple Dragon guards clustered outside to clear this entire wing of the palace, and then take themselves as far away as the Chamber of the Brazen Fool. He stood silently, waiting until the echoes of their obedient movements faded.

Vangerdahast spoke a quiet word. It awakened guardian magics that would reveal any hidden, lurking spy. He received with complete lack of surprise the lore that no such intruder existed within range. Making sure he was standing on a specific floor tile, he touched one of the rings on a hidden chain around his neck and spoke a word he'd hoped never to have to use again.

There was suddenly a taller, black-robed man standing on an adjacent tile, rubbing his beard and looking less than happy. "Yes?" he snapped.

Vangerdahast bowed slightly to his guest. "My apologies, Lord Khelben. Be welcome in the royal palace of Cormyr, in Suzail."

"Oddly enough, Vangy," Khelben growled, "I know where the royal palace is. I'll even accept that apology. The honor of your hospitality overwhelms me. It will do so even more if you unfold the reason for my summoning." The edge of his mouth curled. "A sufficiently interesting answer may even blunt Laeral's wrath at my abrupt disappearance. Note that 'may,' and speak accordingly."

Vangerdahast drew in a deep breath as their eyes met. "We stand outside the Hall of Scrolls and Ledgers. You had a hand in casting some still-active defensive spells here. Something has appeared therein; it's my hope that you can identify it and explain its appearance."

The Blackstaff raised one dark eyebrow, turned to face the massive double doors, and made a twisting gesture with one hand.

There was an instant of singing silence. Then the doors collapsed into shards and dust with a roar that swelled and shrank away to nothing again. The torrent of falling metal had vanished, swallowed up by thin air just above the floor tiles the two men stood on.

"How-?"

"One of the spells I cast, long ago. No door in this palace can stand against me."

It was Vangerdahast's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Oh? Why did you do that?"

Khelben shrugged. "We all have our own ways of doing things." He pointed across the mirror-bright floor of the Hall to the human hand jutting so improbably out of the smooth marble. "This, for example, is Elminster's work."

"What!'' the Royal Magician snarled. "You're sure?"

Khelben strolled over to a certain spot on the floor and murmured a word. The air glowed for a moment, he raised his hand into the glow, and when the radiance faded, the Lord Mage of Waterdeep was holding a large, ornate decanter.

"Unmistakable. I've seen this spell before. Someone sprang one of his traps-probably cast on a spot where he meets with the Simbul."

"So, that's a Red Wizard." Vangerdahast mused. "Or… was."

Khelben nodded, sipping from the decanter without bothering with a flagon.

Vangerdahast looked at the decanter rather unhappily. How many more hidden surprises did the hall's web of spells hold? He asked rather hesitantly, "And to get rid of it?"

Khelben licked his lips and raised the decanter again. "I'm sure you know how to call on him," he replied. "Even if you don't want to."

Vangerdahast winced, as if something painful had struck him. Stepping reluctantly out through the entrance that the doors no longer guarded, he lifted one hand and murmured something.

Khelben watched, not quite smiling.

Abruptly a ring of light glowed on the floor tiles. A moment later, someone stood in its center.

She was tall and slender-some would almost have said bony, for her ribs showed clearly as she spun around. Unruly silver hair writhed about her like a nest of roused snakes. She faced her summoner. Vangerdahast swallowed.

The angry eyes of the Simbul, Witch-Queen of Aglarond, were barely three paces from his. She wore nothing and did not look amused.

"Vangerda-" she began, her voice dangerously low and soft. Blue motes of magical fire gathered above her left palm, and she turned to look into the hall.

Her face changed. She crowed in delight and raced across the floor on silent bare feet to where the hand reached up from the floor.

Bending over to peer at it-both men stared a moment, looked away, cleared their throats, and turned again to regard her-the sorceress clapped her hands and hissed happily, "Adrelgus, yes! Foolish enough to try to slay me!"

She spun around to regard the two wizards, planted her hands on her hips, and bubbled, "This is what El meant by my 'little present, reaching for me'!"

She clapped her hands, muttered something. The hand was abruptly gone, the marble floor as smooth and unbroken as if it had never been there.

The Simbul gave them a cheery wave, tossed her hair in a defiantly alluring pose, and snapped her fingers- whereupon she vanished too.

Inevitably, the two men stared in unison at where she'd stood, cleared their throats, and slowly turned to look at each other.

"If you're ever captured," Khelben said in a very dry voice, "try not to let it be by a woman… or at least, not that one."

Vangerdahast glanced involuntarily back to the floor where the hand had been. It bore no trace at all of ever having held a Red Wizard.

"How many palaces, vaults, and castles across Faerun, which their owners think are secure," he asked, looking sick, "can be breached so readily?"

Khelben smiled with only a corner of his mouth. "Oh," he said quietly, "you'd be surprised."

No, no! [ripple of rage] not mages you taught or now take to bed! Early days, i said!

Bah! If mystra didn't breed you or create you, she choose you. Take me back, beyond youk birth, into whatever memories she gave you of your choosing… And let's see why.

stupid wizard.

***

The Royal Magician of Cormyr looked up into Queen Filfaeril's eyes and found them just as sparkling with anger as he'd expected. Thank you, O watching gods.

"You were right to send for me, Highness," he said gravely.

The queen nodded, face frozen, and began pointing-at the door guards, her ladies-in-waiting, the two war wizards behind Vangerdahast, and finally, the door.

"R-royal Lady?" one of the guards dared to ask, earning himself a regal scowl and an imperious gesture toward the door. That was enough to start the hasty, wordless migration.

Vangerdahast stood motionless, facing the queen, until the stream of swift, quiet bodies was gone, and they were alone.

"Lady?" he asked, not bothering to hide his sigh.

"Vangy," the queen said with an exasperated sigh of her own," call me Faeril or Fee or even 'stupid bitch,’ but stop looking at me as if I've singlehandedly doomed the realm! What could you have been doing that can possibly be more important than uncovering another plot against the throne?"

"Lady," he said, stepping forward to clasp her hand, "I know not. I was on my way here, in answer to your call, when I–I remembered something."

The queen let her incredulous eyebrow speak for her.

Vangerdahast gave her a sour smile and added, "I'm not quite in my dotage yet, Faeril. It was a rather important memory-of the Blackstaff and the queen of Aglarond, here in these halls-and I can't think why it came back to me. So sudden and so vivid-all of it playing out in front of me as if I were living it."

The queen's eyes narrowed. "Khelben and the Simbul here? When was this, exactly?"

Vangerdahast sighed. "Lady," he said, "it's no part of present treacheries. I'll explain later, when you've unfolded whatever this latest plot is. Would it be Lady Kesse-mer's, by any chance?"

Filfaeril stared at him. "How did you know?"

The Royal Magician coughed. "Lady," lie reminded her mildly,"I am a wizard."

That royal sparkle of anger was back, in full force. "You knew, and you didn't tell me?"

Vangerdahast took great care neither to sigh nor to roll his eyes. "Lady," he began carefully….

"Ssso, Queen of Aglarond, at lassst you stray within my reach! One little missstake, but I fear 'tisss your lassst!"

The gloating devil's great bat wings struck her tumbling from the sky. She fell hard onto rocks. The cruel talons of dozens of laughing fiends held her captive and raked her mercilessly before she could rise, laying her bare-just in time for the great beast's whip to come down.

Mystra! What fire! Screaming and sobbing in the grasp of the fiend's minions, the Simbul could not even convulse under the lashing pain. Claws caught at her hair and her throat, dragging her head back, bending her over backward. Her blood-drenched front, laid open by the lash, turned toward a sky that matched its bleeding hue.

"Sssoo, what does a god-touched human taste like, I wonder," the great fiend purred, stretching down an impossibly long black arm.

Spread-eagled and helpless, the Simbul could only moan as that great taloned hand closed on her breast and tightened cruelly. Nails dug into her. The fiend's flesh was hot. She could smell her skin sizzling as it burned, the stink choking her even more than the fresh pain. Somehow she managed to scream, "No! No! Nooooo!”

Her cry sent crystals and gems humming and singing all around her in the darkness. Gasping, Alassra Silverhand stared up at her own bedchamber ceiling.

No devils, no blood-red sky… she was alone, thrashing on her bed, drenched with sweat. Her hands were twisted in the samite beneath her, and there was nothing covering her but air-cool air. Yet she was afire, hot and burning, as if she had a fever-

No, the fire was raging in her breast! The Simbul gasped the word that made the ceiling glow. In its light, she looked down along her body. There was dark, dried blood all over her… but not enough to hide the horrible scar seared on her breast.

It was a deep burn-a brand she'd wear forever, unless magic banished it. It looked like it had been left by large, long, sharp-taloned fingers.

Panting with rage and fear and pain, she sat up and ran a hand over her twisted flesh. Aye, it was real.

Her jaw tightened in anger even before her hands flashed out to two of the gems set into the edge of her bed. Magic kindled within them. The flash of the first told her that no taint lurked within her, and she let the second do its healing work.

Breathing more easily now as the pain ebbed, the queen of Aglarond threw back her head, her hair writhing like soft snakes along her bare shoulders. "Tharammas of Thay, and his spell of nightmares! It must be!"

The healing gem winked out, and bare feet struck the floor. Imperious, furiously striding, the Simbul charged along darkened corridors, doors flying open-and almost cringing-before her.

Sleepy guards snapped to careful attention and dared not move another muscle as their monarch raged by. Rings and staves and robes and cloaks whirled to the queen of Aglarond as she went, clothing her for battle. A snarled word made spell-locked doors at the end of one last passage fly open, to let in the chill moonlight.

"Well," she told the cool night wind savagely as she stepped onto a moon-drenched balcony, "at least this time I know which Red Wizard isn't going to live to see the dawn!"

Spells sparkled around slender fingers. The robed queen melted away into a raging shadow. It quavered a moment under the moon, and then whirled away into the wind, east into the night, and was gone.

[Amid the raging of Hell, one Old Mage sinks back with a sigh and looks at his empty, broken hand.] Aye. Stupid wizard, indeed.