Elminster in Hell tes-4

by Ed Greenwood

  "I don't have to do this, you know," Lhaeo muttered. "I could be earning a whole copper piece a month digging graves in Voonlar."

  "Ye could be ruling a kingdom somewhere not so far away, lad," Elminster told the ceiling.

  "Don't tempt me," Lhaeo grunted. "Glass everywhere, roses shredded and smoking, and several dozen young Sernbian ladies coming to tea! Couldn't you just slay me : now and get it over with?"

  "And what would I be doing for fun tomoirow, eh? Ye princelings-always thinking only of thyselves, sparing not a thought for the welfare of feeble old wizards, worn out from saving the world for a few thousand years…."

  "Oh, belt up! The only thing worse than a gushing gossip is a puffed-up wizard! You've already eaten half the sandwiches, and they're not even here yet!"

  " Twas the least I could do, lad," Elminster replied in hurt tones, "after ye went to all that trouble, trimming off j the crusts."

  Lhaeo's head rose into view through the glass-toothed window frame. "And that's another thing! Off you go to another of these 'other worlds,' and pick up another utterly crazed idea! Cutting my perfectly good egg-glazed crust off bread sliced so thin I can spit through it! What idiotic sort of folk do that? I-"

  "Could spit through it, as a mere supposition, I hope," Elminster said reprovingly, one eyebrow lifting.

  "Could and did," Lhaeo told him. "I had to try it, once I thought of it."

  Elminster emitted a sort of incredulous "eep," and looked down at the neat piles of crustless sandwiches on the plates before him.

  Lhaeo gave him a disgusted look. "You don't mess about much in kitchens, do you?"

  At that moment a fat-bellied copper frog statuette on a nearby shelf opened one eye and its mouth, cleared its throat, and said in flat tones. — "Bong."

  Lhaeo groaned. "They're here." He waved a hand wildly, murmured something-and all the glass in the room rose back into place in a smooth, glittering swirl.

  Elminster raised a sardonic brow. "Getting a little show}' now, for the ladies?"

  The window made a very rude sound in reply.

  Elminster ignored it. Lifting two fingers in a swift little gesture, he said to the empty air. "Pray enter and be welcome, ladies fair. Let my humble home be a refuge to thee, however unworthy its accoutrements. As ye walk about my home, I bid ye remember only this: If ye don't touch it, it can't hurt ye. Tea is served in the room whose door is now glowing blue."

  Blue mists roiled for a moment at the far end of the chamber. The door there swung wide.

  Something large and lace-trimmed and seemingly triple-bosomed sailed in through the mists before Elminster could finish putting a kindly smile on his face. "Oh, so YOU are the GREAT Elmin-STAH! SUCH an honor, SUCH a rare joy to meet you! My friends back in Selgaunt will be SO jealous! A REAL live archWIZARD, sitting in his own parlor with all his books and funny hats and skulls and JARS of frogs and… oh, well, yes, it's SO exciting! ISN'T it, girls?"

  There was an obedient chorus of "Yes, great lady" from the doorway, but Great Lady Calabrista wasn't waiting to hear it.

  "I want you to know, sirrah, that we have come SUCH a long way just to see YOU, and that I've chosen only the FINEST of my young ladies! I'd not DREAM of wasting your time on anything but the BEST! Oh, yes, I think you'll be HIGHLY satisfied at the sort of young lady my little school produces-if I DO say so, myself! Girls? GIRLS! Dally not at the doorway, but come in, come in, so the GREAT Elminster can see you!"

  The teacup in front of Elminster muttered, "Sounds like a slaver I once heard in Tharsult." The voice sounded suspiciously like a tiny, tinny replica of Lhaeo's.

  Elminster smiled and said, "GREAT Lady Calabrista, ye must be SO hungry after such a LONG, ARDUOUS journey!"

  The teacup sputtered, but Elminster ignored it. "PRAY enter in and sit in my BEST chair, and partake of these SUCCULENT sandwiches and a little light berry cordial…. Thy young ladies, too, I'm sure, would not take such fare amiss…."

  Before he finished speaking, the owner of the high- '! prowed gown and helm-high hairdo had whisked herself into the pink silk cushions of a gilded high-back lounge. It had been a rotting mushroom in the forest out by Harper's Hill only that morning. She swept sandwiches onto a silver self-platter faster than raindrops fly to earth. A dainty decanter of cordial floated gently off a shelf to fill a fluted glass at the Great Lady Calabrista's elbow, causing her to emit a surprised little titter.

  Four young and silken-gowned beauties drifted into the room, making hand-courtesies as they came. They ranged themselves before the four empty chairs farthest '] from their tutor. Their beauty was as gilded as fine court furniture, but at least two of their smiles held a touch too much superior sneer. All of them affected slight boredom and languid ease. All of them would soon catch cold in the gowns they had chosen to impress. Watching pearls glisten, slippers glide, and pendulous gem-cluster earrings sway and dangle, Elminster was beginning to be reminded of Tharsult too.

  "Come along, come closer, girls! DON'T be shy; great men have no time for shy little girls! Sirrah Elminster, these sandwiches are QUITE the most EXQUISITE morsels that have passed these my lips in weeks! Why, whatever are they made of?"

  "Snail, Great Lady," Elminster said with the sweetest of smiles. "Laced with a green paste made from only the largest tree-slugs of the forest around us, garnished with pepper and lemon-squeezings, of course."

  "Of course," the Great Lady Calabrista echoed, faintly and haltingly.

  Elminster put a firm hand over his teacup to muffle its snort of mirth.

  Four gracefully extended hands stopped, quivered, and withdrew, leaving platters untouched.

  The Old Mage raised his brows. "Oh, but they're GOOD! Nobles in Waterdeep prize nothing else more highly! And if the gods smile upon thee, and grant their brightest luck-" He leaned forward eagerly, peering at the sandwiches upon the platter before him, until his hand stabbed suddenly down, to peel back bread and reveal a hurrying slug undulating out of the heart of a sandwich-for just a moment, before he slapped the bread back into place, snatched the sandwich to his mouth, and bit down, hard-"ye find a live one! Ah, there's nothing like it!”

  As he spoke, the green head of the slug poked out of the corner of his mouth, twisted this way and that ques-tioningly, and then vanished within again. Elminster chewed heartily, beaming at his guests. The little illusions get 'em, every time.

  "I–I think it would be best," the Great Lady Calabrista quavered, "if we proceeded with the burden of our visit. Men of great influence in Sembia-not to put too fine a point on it, men of great WEALTH-have enrolled their daughters at my school for some years now, seeking to find those who are GIFTED BY THE GODS with an aptitude for magic… an aptitude that I flatter myself I can draw out without recourse to dark altars and midnight fires and sacrifices of, er, snails…. THAT IS TO SAY, I am confident that these, my BEST students, will not disappoint any competent practitioner of the ART! I was REQUESTED to bring them before you by VERY highly placed individuals, for your examination and-ah, approval."

  "Ye have done well and wisely," Elminster said with a smile. "I approve of all of them."

  "You DO? Without eve-that is to say, their fitness at magic shines forth so BRIGHTLY?"

  "Indeed, Great Lady," Elminster said with a gracious smile, gently slapping his teacup (which had begun to emit small sounds that resembled hiccups), "it doth. Indubitably. Had ye not had so GREAT a hand in the shaping of their glories, their power would blind EVEN YE! Let me tender my apologies, ladies four, for discussing thee as one does cattle, or fine gowns, or the luster of china…. What concerns me most is not thy grasp of spells but thy thinking, and characters, and the daily flight of thy heans. Perhaps we can assay a beginning in learning that, here today. I-"

  Glass burst into the room in a thousand sparkling shards. Sighing, Elminster put one hand over his teacup again.

  "Die, cursed mageling!" The mage in the window thrust her hands forward in claws, and lightning burst from her long fing
ers.

  They snarled across the room amid the customary blinding flashes and spitting sparks, and struck something unseen a foot or so shy of the Old Mage's nose. He calmly watched them rebound, amid the screams, crashing headlong flights, sprays of loose pearls, and the Great Lady Calabrista clawing her way up the back of her grand chair, which promptly overbalanced to reveal far, far too many silk and gem-beaded gauze petticoats to the world. Lightnings clawed at the Red Wizardess who'd cast them. They scattered before her shield as she snarled in angry triumph and lashed out at random around the room, causing a certain teacup to dance, chairs to slump back into mushrooms again, and the frog to open both its eyes very wide and inquire, "Bong?"

  In three breaths the room was empty of four Sembian ladies. Elminster reclined at ease in his chair, sandwich in hand. He watched with interest as the last of his young visitors, trembling and white to the very lips, held forth a wand she'd snatched out of a hitherto-hidden hip sheath, gritted her teeth, and hissed out a word that brought the stick of wood in her hands into furious life.

  A white beam smashed across the room, caused red fires to rage about the Thayan mage for a crazed instant, and then smashed the Red Wizardess, window, spell shield, and all, out into the garden, leaving a large and smoking hole in its wake.

  The young Sembian stared at what she'd done, unshed tears bright in her eyes.

  A weak voice groaned from somewhere outside, "My roses!"

  ''Are ye all right, Lhaeo? I wasn't expecting this spitfire here to have a wand of ever-searing flames…."

  "That wasn't me," his scribe told him wearily. "I was still being a teacup. That was a Red Wizard-or Wizardess, whatever."

  Old and magely brows rose together. "Two, in one afternoon? I'll have to start charging a toll." Elminster's head turned slowly, and he asked the astonished young lady, "Noumea Fairbright? That is thy name, is it not?" At her nod, he continued, "Noumea, wherever did ye get a wand of ever-searing flames? They're not safe, ye know."

  The young lady gaped at him for a few moments longer, and then found her voice. "Safe? SAFE? After you set your apprentice on us hurling lightning? To trick us and scorch us and scare us like I've never been scar before? Why, you-"

  Elminster grinned, and Lhaeo's face, as it appeared at the window, wore an identical expression.

  "Ye'Il do," they said in chorus. "Yes, ye'U do just fine. Sit down, feet up, and have a snail sandwich; they're really mustard, cheese, and pickles. We've much to talk about." 1

  Noumea glared at them both for a moment longer. Then she sat down firmly on a mushroom and brought two spike-heeled golden slippers down on Elminster's table with a crash. "Well?" she asked, raising a severe but amused eyebrow. "Wasn't there some cordial?"

  Chapter Fourteen

  ONE HELL OF A BARGAIN

  Tentacles tightened-and a devil's head flew. The spinagon's neck fountained black, smoking blood as its body whirled around in grotesque spasms. Its staring head bouncing wetly on the rocks some distance away.

  Disgusted, Nergal turned away. Even slaying things gave him no satisfaction now. Avernus was in an uproar, with pit fiend generals riding dragons here and there, legions of cornugons flying in their wake, and barb-tailed osyluths stalking everywhere, spying and prying. Thrice he'd escaped attack only by the swiftest of shapeshifts and masterful acting. Sooner or later he'd end up trying to impersonate a particular general to troops who reported to the real general.

  Almost as bad as that prospect was the likelihood of his encountering a spy of the Lord of Lies-a margrave or overduke or demichancellor who'd been sent to scour out the truth of things in Avernus.

  All this because of one old, weak, smart-tongued mortal wizard who was still successfully resisting all attempts to plunder his mind of anything useful. A wizard who even | now was wandering Avernus, blundering along into trouble.Trouble for Nergal, too.As long as Nergal was riding,| his mind, there was a link between them that even an amnizu could follow.

  He'd best pounce on the worm and leash him in chains, and then take the shape of one of the pit fiends he'd slain I himself-Gorkor, or Jarleil, or Tharthammon. Yes. Tharthammon would do a slow, grim, close-mouthed giant among pit fiends. Few, even among the dukes, dared to question when he gave them dark looks.

  So farewell tentacles, and fair greeting to great arching wings and a bulk as large as four Nergals. It was high time to call his wandering mind-slave back home.

  Mind-twisted Faerunian bastard.

  Ho, little worm! How are the fair sights of hell?

  [guilty swirling of silver-silver fire? Had that been silver fire? But softly…]

  Unprepossessing.

  Ah, then you can see me again?

  I'm not bleeding into my eyes just now.

  [growl] You tread dangerously on my patience, wizard….

  An erinyes swooped down and healed me-see the memory if ye believe me not. what?

  [mental scrabbling, frantic haste, images flashing past in a roar, hard slow staring, then bitter cursing in the tongue of Hell]

  Elminster, heed! Cease moving about. Find some cave or crevice to cower in, and stay there. I'm reclaiming you.

  I'd hate to miss the pleasure of shared company.

  Your tongue, mortal, will be the blade that stabs you yet. Just you hide in one place until i reach you. I'm less than pleased with your stalling. You know very well what i seek and persist in giving me memories of this wench and that-is lust all that consumes you?

  No, but 'tis one of my favorites.

  [growl] that clever tongue…

  It occurs to me that i've been seeking your memories of wielding power in the wrong way. Humans seem so direct, but perhaps you wizards do more as we of hell do: meddle, acting at a distance through agents, unwitting and otherwise…

  I've quite a collection of memories of my meddling in things-busy centuries worth, in fact.

  [mumbled curse] I find myself unsurprised. Let us begin….

  [mind lash, fiery eyes moving forcefully forward, cries ignored, images flashing past…]

  ***

  Torchlight flickered off glistening mauve slime as a tentacled head turned. "Well, what have we here?"

  "Mhulker," Baergrim snapped from behind him. "It's still you, isn't it? That-that thing isn't taking you over, is it?"

  "My guest has… needs," the mage with the mind/layer's head replied in hurt tones. "Were you in a particular hurry to descend yon stairs and die deeper in Undermountain? Or is hereabouts exclusive enough for you?"

  "I'm in no particular hurry to die anywhere, thank you," the warrior replied sourly"! just wanted to remind you that this is the lair of Halaster the Mad, and things are seldom what they seem. I mean, if yon lady's been chained for long, how is it that something else hasn't come along already' to devour her?"

  The wizard, breathing heavily, pushed through the bead curtain in the archway. He entered a room where a chained woman was spread-eagled over a pedestal. Her large eyes were terrified, pleading over the tight leather gag that covered the lower half of her face.

  "My guest only wants her brain," the wizard snapped. "You may have the rest of her when I'm done."

  Baergrim came to a halt well back of the pedestal where the woman's torso rested, and exchanged warning looks with the other two Blades: a small darker-, skinned warrior named Eltragar and a slim woman in worn and patched leathers. Mheriyam was a nervous thief. She had daggers in either hand, and her face was.' white with fear.

  Together, the three Blades watched the wizard approach the pedestal. It was surrounded by a glowing circle of green dust on the floor. Runes of a similar hue had been ', painted on the woman's arms.

  The wizard gave the ring a quick, sneering glance and j strode right across it. As he leaned over the woman with a I tight smile growing on his face, she jerked her head from j side to side, sudden and frantic flailing making her chains j rattle. Yet, arching and twisting, she could not escape the tentacles now reaching out-

  "Mhulker!" Baer
grim snapped suddenly. "Mhulker, get back! That gag's covering her mouth and her nose! She can't be breathing-so she can't be human!”

  There was a sudden confusion of writhing tentacle jouncing chains and roiling lights around the pedestal-and then a brief roar of flame.

  When its flash died and the Blades could see again, they found themselves blinking in horror at something lurching; toward them. Mheriyam screamed.

  Mhulker's legs and pelvis were staggering back from the pedestal with nothing left above them but a little cloud of drifting ash.

  Three blades came up in unison, but no one made a i move toward the pedestal. As Mhulker's remains stumbled j and sagged to the floor, the cloud of winking lights and rushing smoke above the pedestal coalesced suddenly into-a man.

  A bald, elderly man with long white hair and wrinkled brown robes stood beyond the pedestal. His fierce eyes softened not a whit as he folded his arms across his chest and gave them an eager, welcoming smile.

  "Halaster!" Mheriyam howled in terror, whirling around and breaking into a frantic run Halaster Blackcloak!"

  Baergrim and Eltragar did not need to hear her warning; they were already running hard, bouncing bruisingly off stone walls as they gasped and stumbled. Cold, cruel laughter pursued them a long way down the passages they fled through.

  When the echoes of frantic boots had faded, the mad wizard shaped one of his arms once more into slender femininity and with a glance spun a chain out of nothing to link it with the wall once more. Someone else was coming, and the old ruses were the good ones.

  In a few moments, the woman lay spread-eagled in her chains on the pedestal once more, eyes pleading above the gag that once more covered both mouth and nose. One had to give the alert ones some small chance at survival, after all___

  The chained woman turned her head and stared in swift fury at the figure who came through the beaded curtain next. It wore his own true likeness, a bald, elderly man with long white hair, fierce eyes, and wrinkled brown robes-and it leaned against the archway, folded arms across its chest and smiled at him. "Halaster Blackcloak, I presume?"