Nergal crossed arms that swam with a glistening array of small, blinking, human-seeming eyeballs, and bent their manifold gazes on Elminster.
"Beings of power interest me, from the puny masters of your thieving guilds to the dragons and lich lords of Faerun who wield almost a tenth of the spell-might they think they do. "With a grin too wide for human jaws, the archdevil began to pace again. "So I use my spells to spy on Faerunians of might who may prove useful. I've been watching you for a long time, Elminster Aumar. You are the key, I've long thought. Not because you're half so mighty as you think you are, or even a match for a spinagon in a fair battle, but because you are my road to gaining Mystra's power over magecraft. She works through you very strongly, and what she has, when suitably modified, could thunder just as strongly in Hell… giving me control over all magic, and in some measure those who work it!"
Nergal laughed again. "This tumult over Shade captured my attention at just the right time and has delivered you to me. Now all I need do, to gain the powers of the lady you serve, or at least the ways of calling on and controlling it, is master your mind."
Tentacles plucked Elminster from the rocks again and held him with casual tenderness. Another tentacle stabbed down, bursting the Old Mage's left eye tike a raw egg. After a momentary chaos of swimming brightness, Elminster could sec once more-albeit dimly, through a blood-red haze.
"See? You can't even die on me," Nergal purred into Elminster's lace, as tenderly as a lover "Understanding your wits will deliver to me control of the silver fire, all your other little powers and favorite spells, and your storehouse of memories. That last alone is the key to ruling Toril with magic and making it my own realm. A Hell away from Hell, as it were!"
Fingers as hot as fire irons took hold of Elminster's cheeks. The archdevil's forked tongue undulated hungrily forth as he bent his head to kiss the helpless wizard, tentacles lightening suddenly into chains that held Elminster immobile.
Nergal’s lips were like ice-a searing cold that raged through Elminster's ruined mouth and nose. He tried to murmur, tried to pull away… but could do nothing until the archdevil released him with a gloating smile.
"Taste my mindworm, mage. A magic of my own invention, devised to take your memories, to learn how you call on and control Mystra's power and what you know of things and beings of power in Faerun that I can snatch and use myself. Of course, each memory I gain will be lost to wise old Elminster. In the end, there'll be naught left of you but a lurching, drooling half-wit, remembering only that you were once mighty… once, before you met Nergal."
The archdevil roared with laughter, and darting tentacles touched Elminster here and there, sending smaller spells through him until the naked, exhausted man could stand once more. In a shuffling stagger that made him gasp in wordless pain, he struggled away. Tentacles whipped his still-raw flesh, goading him into movement.
Leaving a bloody trail, Elminster tried to hasten beyond the reach of those cruel tentacles.
Go, Nergal's mocking voice said, deep in his mind. The glories of avernus await. I shall ride with you. Seeing what would flee ok hide from me… And lying within you, as a surprise for those who'd do you i'll. So wander where you will, mighty wizard.
Elminster shuddered. Broken he might be no longer, but pain still racked him from a hundred lesser hurts. He was powerless to use his magic or contact Mystra or anyone else. Everything he did would be revealed to the devil riding his mind. He was doomed, just as soon as Nergal finished reaming his memory… and Toril would be doomed with him. He was tree to drag his husk of a body around Avernus, if that could be called freedom. He'd felt enough of Net-gal's questing thoughts already to tell himself the devil who'd violated him delighted in ruining minds.
So he stumbled away, uncaring, up a bare rock ridge. As he went, the ground trembled under him. A gout of flame spat up into the sky, sending an abishai squalling into frantically flapping flight.
Wincing at sharp stones underfoot, El reached the top of the ridge and looked out across a wasteland of rock. There, spinagons and abishai slunk and marled at each other. Beyond loomed a high cliff where devils gathered.
A patrol, throw youself down.
Elminster stood unmovmg, peering this way and that. Now was a good time to test Nergal’s control over him.
Without warning, his body surged sickeningfy, as if an eel or snake were moving inside him. He crashed down hard onto unyielding stone, bouncing once with the force of his fell.
Obey, great. Be aware of that there are more painful ways of taming you.
I’ll shuddered. In his fall, he'd driven his hand into a tangle of thorns. As he struggled to pluck them out, weeping at the pain, he wondered how anything survived in this bleak realm of rock. What did devils eat? Each other, perhaps, but how did they ever birth enough to feed these hosts of…
The whorlspells sustain vs.
The what?
You's little secrets. Wandering, cast by no one they have always been-little whirlpool of snatching magic that steal water, creatures, and things from other planes, spilling them down rifts in the rock. Food comes to us from the whorispells, and treasure.
Elminster sighed, shook his head, and tried to get to his feet. He made it as far as his hands and knees before he felt the crawling sensation again. He pitched forward onto his face, scrabbling at the rocks with bleeding fingers.
Stay down and go this way.
So much for wandering. El sighed-it came out as a hoarse gurgle-and started to crawl. A ball of fire roared across the sky, and the ground shook again.
He was standing on the wind-scoured battlements of a castle that no longer existed, watching something in the snow-covered garden below stir and suddenly rise, throwing off a thick cloak of ice, and reaching out a scaly claw-
Into a dark, dim hall where skeletons sat slumped in tall, arch-backed chairs, wan glows flickering about their bone fingers as the enchantments in the rings they wore finally died, letting loose spells that had been cast before Alaundo had been born…
The probing force in his mind faltered, and he was back in Avernus again. An angry mental roar echoed through him: By the searing fires? Your mind is … Utter chaos.
El found himself grinning fiercely, and tried to send a firm, clear thought back at the wandering sentience within him.
Of course, I am a wizard.
A wordless slap came back at him out of the darkness of his own mind. It sent Elminster tumbling in a wet flow of what might have been tears or blood. He found himself screaming, or trying to, and shaking a head he did not have-
Desperately, in the innermost cloak of comfort he'd fled into, he turned over a rock close to his heart and warmed his hand, just for a moment, on the silver fire lurking beneath.
Then, calm once more, he rose within the velvet darkness of his mind and went on, parting veils until he saw the blood-red sky of Avernus once more. Near the distant horizon streaked another ball of flame.
What did you-? The fire-you used Mystra's fire! Give it to me!
Crawling, Elminster kept silent, trying to get over the ridge before the awful compulsion to turn and look back at Nergal's glaring face overwhelmed him.
The outcast devil stood with arms folded and eyes like flames. His tentacles rose above him, trembling to strike. Yield to me, man! The voice roared in his mind. Show me how you call on the silver fire!