Wearily, the boldest flying devils began to circle in the distance where they could see the battlefield.
The Simbul spun a spell that would bring her armor of tirelessly hacking blades back to her. Perhaps she could hang them around her, in a forest of moving, hostile steel, and fly on awaiting her turn to embrace foes.
On the other hand, she was in no hurry to end up as a blackened pool of blood enlivened by a few flames. The Simbul looked around at the harsh peaks and the bat-winged devils perching in long lines atop them.
"Asmodeus," she told the empty air, "perhaps we could bargain. You give me the man I came for-alive, untainted, and unharmed-and I'll slaughter whichever dozen arch-devils you'd like removed from the scene. Have we a deal?"
The sound that raced through the rocks under her bare and bloody feet seemed a thunderous snort of amusement. When it reached the peaks around her, the hundreds of devils took wing in frightened unison, flapping frantically away in all directions.
Alone in Hell, the Simbul gathered her magic and her garments once more about her. "Well," she muttered with a shrug, as she knelt to pick up a twisted shard of armor plate,"if you should change your mind…"
***
Ho! Ho! Quite a lady lover you've got there, little worm.
I'u. Give you to another unfriend of mine soon.. Just as soon as i get well down into these juicy memories here….
[scream] hah! Not so much fun taunting me now, eh? Am i finally getting close to something you'd rather i not have? Dear, dear…
[roaring bellows of diabolic laughter]
Chapter Eighteen
The spinagon toppled off the ridge, its head an empty, burnt husk. Smoke streamed from the sockets that had held its eyes. Nergal wanted no trail left back to him, and the work of his coerced spy was done.
It had watched the pit fiend that was not a pit fiend race past like a dark fireball-wings folded behind it, unused.The Simbul cared about hiding her armor of whirling blades but did not care that there was something odd about the shape she'd assumed. If wandering abishai drew back from attacking the pit fiend that was somehow not a pit fiend, that was enough.
She was on her way to strike at the outcast devil Harhoring-who had unwittingly received the unwilling bundle that was Elminster. Nergal had forced his mind-captive into the shape of an old, scorched devil's thighbone, to better hide the wizard in the huge bone pit that Harhoring called home. The future Lord of All Hell hadn't wanted the Lord of Bones noticing the gift while he was still linked to Elminster's mind.
Snarling, Nergal wondered not for the first time just why he was wasting his time trying to glean useful memories from the wizard. Again he'd been shown useless kindnesses to nobodies, not the secrets of wielding great magic. Did the human have an endless supply of useless remembrances?
Just how long could one mortal keep a devil dancing?
Thrice, now, Nergal had tried to drive hard toward a memory-any memory-of Elminster actually casting a spell, teaching or being taught magic, or storing or hiding anything enchanted. The human's mind had crumbled, yes, collapsing as it should before his fury… and yet, somehow, when he ceased charging, confident he'd finally seized on something-he found himself empty-handed once more. How did the human do it? He was puny in body, had no hidden magic except the silver fire lurking somewhere inside him, had been torn apart and healed any number of times now, and involuntarily transformed even more often- Still he fought, subtly, deep in the very mind that Nergal was tramping around. Every memory yielded was lost to the man-yet he joked, he made sarcastic comments… he was still sane.
Sane at least as far as an archdevil could tell about a human-
Fires take all, he was not going to give up. After all this work, to end up with nothing. He was going to take this Elminster's mind apart memory by memory, for all the wearying years this old wizard had managed to live, and he was going to find that magic. Magic to make Nergal a lord of Hell at last.
Let the Simbul slay his rivals, one after another, while a fresh mindworm burrowed into her beloved. She'd be going to a lot of work to rescue a drooling husk.
Nergal cast the spell carefully, letting the old one crumble only an instant before he began. He must unerringly find Elminster again without alerting either the human sorceress or Harhoring.
He drew in a deep sigh of relief when the familiar vaulted darkness loomed in his mind once more. He was back inside Elminster's mind… and never noticed that his host had used silver fire in a wild frenzy of healing, in the brief time he'd not been riding the wizard's mind. At least physically, El was whole-if weak and weary- once more.
Hail elminster, archmage of shadowdale, he thought mockingly.
Hail Nergal, Lord of Hell, came the mocking reply.
Rage flared like bright fire in the tentacled archdevil, but he wrestled it grimly down and slipped deeper into the human's mind as gently as if he was a lover come to caress, and not a ravager come to seize and destroy.
Let us begin again, little pig of a human.
[mind lash, pain, savage diabolic grin, rending bright images, hurling, burrowing, clawing aside more]
Aha! What have we here?
[images surging]
The chancellor's eyes were black and glittering. He might have been one of the ravens of the battlements as he turned on her.
"We've heard lies to spare from you lips, my lady," he said coldly. "Speak truth to me, and soon, or I may just decide to waste no time on you ever again."
Suddenly his fingers were in her hair, tearing, hauling Silaril roughly to her knees. His rings were cold against her cheek as his sword grated from its scabbard.
"I have had enough of your twisted words, 'Lady.' I have been patient too long."
Steel stung SilarU's throat. She forced herself to remain silent, her face still-but she could not stop her chest heaving, brushing the arm that held her captive.
The chancellor knew her fear and smiled slowly and coldly. "I will now hear truth from your pretty lips. If you refuse, or speak falsely, your body will taste some truth from this sword. My patience is at an end."
Now, what was that, I wonder? Pity the rest is gone. We archdevils are so mighty, you know, that even when we're trying to be oh-so-careful, sometimes things just get… Broken. Clever human wizards, for instance.
I understood thy heavy-handed point, Nergal. Have ye something particular in mind for thy viewing pleasure."
No, mage, i let you lead me long enough-and a fine, long, and wasted road you led me on, too. I believe i'll look where i will, without your guidance-and just might thereby find what i'm seeking without a lot of clever racktalk from a human whose life hangs by the thinnest of threads.
[silence]
[diabolic chuckle]
[images swilling]
Somewhere in the Stonelands, Manshoon raised his head and looked back the way he'd come, coldly and calmly. The reek of rotting flesh was strong around him. His nostrils twitched at the sharp stench. For a moment he remembered his first fearful experimentation with zombies, in a crypt far away and long ago…. One never forgot the smell.
[diabolic sigh, more images flung side, others torn apart]
All right… This one!
The skull watched all of this, nodding knowingly from time to time.