After such a fall, even a stone hits water as hard as a smith's hammer. His brutal shattering of the surface would have made Elminster gasp-if he'd had anything to gasp with. Warmth bubbled past as he sank, tumbling in the warm, wet depths, slowing now as…
Something dark and snakelike coiled out of the red depths and snatched him. The tentacle lashed around him with the searing bite of a drover's whip… and then he was being dragged back up again.
Well, in the Hells it was hardly to be expected that there'd be any rest for the wicked. So-let the torment begin. Mystra preserve and forfend. Please.
He was up out of the blood-water now, dripping. Unfamiliar magic raged around him, darting into him in little numbing jabs. He was changing, forced under its goads, flowing and unfolding and becoming… himself again, a human with arms and legs and-eyes.
Eyes that swam even as grunts and rending groans and a shrieking symphony of squeals told him he was growing ears. Then all at once, the world spun and shook and came to a halt, amid shocking clarity.
Elminster was standing on warm, sharp rock, and his feet were bare. He had feet, and legs… and his own old, gaunt body, even to the beard. He was standing in a little hollow in a great waste of rock, with foul streams of gas curling around him, burning his legs as they sighed past. Atop the rocks, bare, thorny branches of stunted trees stabbed like despairing fingers up into the blood-red sky. The ground trembled. From somewhere near at hand a flame shot up, raged briefly amid scorched rocks, and fell away out of sight again.
El became aware that something was standing in the deep shadow at the far end of the cleft. It strode forward, stepping around many teeth of rock. Flame-yellow eyes met his with the force of a striking serpent and held him in thrall as their owner advanced leisurely, giving Elminster a smile that was a long way from pleasant-and at the same time promised many things.
An eyebrow lifted, mirroring curving horns above, and a softly hissing voice asked almost gently, "Don't know me, little cringing wizard? I favor a more splendid shape, these days!"
Magic curled around Elminster's throat, choking any answer he might have wanted to make, and the devil's smile widened, "like my gentle talons spell? Nothing to touch the great and mighty magics you're wont to hurl, of course, but it serves me… aye, it serves."
The horn-headed devil turned its head and smiled, those flame-yellow eyes still transfixing Elminster like the tines j of a gigantic fork. "Still know me not, Old Mage? You must be tired."
Elminster gazed at the burly devil, wondering just when he'd become, in this unholy creature's eyes at least, any sort I of expert on the diabolical.
His captor was a naked humanoid whose skin was seal smooth and mottled gray, shot through with hues of brown j and darker gray… very like the shadowed stones of Avernus that rose around them both.
A few scales glinted on the fiend's neck and ankles. Its humanlike head sported two curving horns. What had ; seemed at first glance to be a cloak drawn around the devil could now be clearly seen as a necklace of tentacles. One shot forth to curl around Elminster's bare shoulders, thrusting like a vengeful eel through tatters of drifting vapor-a good thirty feet or more-as the eyes that held Elminster's became a little redder.
"Know, then," the devil said with grotesque formality, sketching a little bow-and forcing, with his tentacle, the dazed and exhausted Old Mage to match it-"that you are j the guest of Nergal, most mighty of the outcast lords of Hell." His smile broadened, and his eyes were now as red as old coals. “You may greet me."
El struggled to speak, finding his throat dry and stiff Nergal's smile became a smug, crooked thing. "Body a mite rebellious, great wizard? How sad. You will already have noted that my poor and paltry magics have served to return you to your true shape, and you've already felt my gentle talons. They ensure that any magic you cast or unleash is drained to strengthen my bonds upon you-oh, you may see them not, but bound you are, and shall be for as long as it's my pleasure to keep you so. You're wrapped in spell bindings linked to ray mind; you'll never escape me unnoticed"
Nergal's lips curled in a sneer as he added, "None have broken my mind yet, Elminster, though you're welcome to try. Attaining freedom is a laudable goal for any sentient being."
The ground trembled again, and a flame shot up over their heads, searing a squalling imp. Nergal's smile broadened as he withdrew his tentacle-and the shuddering of the rocks beneath Elminster's baking feet made him stagger and almost fall.
"Laudable," the devil added gloatingly, "but nigh impossible. You see, I’ve spent much time observing your exploits, Old Weirdbeard-and I have uses for you. Oh, yes."
The archdevil’s tentacles were suddenly writhing above his shoulders, like the limbs of an excited and gigantic spider.
"You will, of course, attempt to escape, perhaps even to harm me. Such failures will make little difference to your torment-and they will be failures."
Tentacles stretched forth almost lazily, and a diabolical smile widened.
"You see: You're in my cozy little dale now, wizard."
And wearing that same welcoming smile, Nergal reached out with a tentacle and tore Elminster's right arm off.
Chapter Two
Nothing is more important than pain. Nothing. It sears and gnaws life itself, commanding all attention, thrusting even archmages into moaning despair.
This particular archmage was only dimly aware of anything more than his pain. Elminster knew he was staggering, trying vainly to clutch at his torn and burning shoulder as tentacles slapped and spun him with lazy glee. Gradually, he became aware of more. The tortured rocks of Avernus stood on all sides, stabbing up into the blood-red sky like the black fingers of corpses. Someone nearby was screaming-a raw, hoarse, and endless cry, a siren of agony amid Nergal's gusty laughter.
Sharp stones laid open El's feet. He barely felt that pain through the agony stabbing through him, leaving him sick and weak. Slowly, he realized something more. The screaming was coining from him.
"Sanity," the archdevil remarked casually, "lasts longer when some vocalization is permitted. It may be an overvalued condition in most expendable slaves, but I need yours to persist awhile longer. Sing, then."
Tentacles wriggled and plowed under human skin, burrowing… -
El stiffened, trying somehow to scream even harder as talons of pain transfixed him. His cry died as he choked and strangled on the blood that an outraged stomach spat forth.
"Not even a dagger drawn in defiance?" Nergal mocked. "Not one cantrip, cast to try to make me belch? Such great magecraft!"
El sagged to his knees, only to find that the tentacles around his legs kept him half-upright, sprawled limp and broken in midair well above the rocks. Tentacles tightened anew, and El's remaining arm snapped in three places.
Jagged bones jutted forth as El's arm was twisted crazity-bones that came at the Old Mage's swimming eyes like blood-drenched daggers as his captor forced El's limbs this way and that, playfully.
"Not even one feeble, flailing spell? Not a ring awakened against me?" The devil's taunt was accompanied by more sickening pain as the rings on El's remaining hand were wrenched off-along with the fingers that bore them." You disappoint me, famous wizard, I expected more. Much more."
Retching, El never saw the tentacle that smashed his nose Into bloody shards or the one that slid across his chest, slicing open the skin like a razor. Suckers latched onto certain winking things of magic that Mystra had left in his flesh, centuries ago, They flared blindingly and made the devil hiss in pain and tear ere the tentacles hurled them away,