As he did so, every spell he'd broken whirled once more to life, restored and singing bright and mighty around her. The room rocked once more with the force of their contesting powers. He held them in check, one doom upon another, and then, with a wave of his hand, spun them all back to nothingness. Her ring reappeared on her finger, undrained. Her spells and her spilled blood returned to her, thrilling her once more with their waiting power.
Laurlaethee gaped at him in astonishment. No one could do thus. No one.
"Mystra is nothing if not merciful," he whispered, the sound carrying loudly to her ear. "Be at peace and of good cheer, Lady Shaurlanglar. Neither of us is angry with thee."
Then he was gone. The ancient elf raised her fingers to her cheeks to brush away tears. For the first time in centuries-long, long centuries of lonely pride-she felt wonder.
She turned her head to look at herself in the lone mirror in that room, and stood a long time lost in thought. Even the withering was gone. She looked-younger! She turned to show one flank to the glass, and then the other. Younger, firmer, taller... she threw back her head and laughed, caring not if it sounded a little wild. Then, impatiently, she did off her gown and let it fall behind her, striding bare to the balcony where she sniffed at the decanter of moonwine, and found it, of course, purged of all srindym.
Laurlaethee shook her head, smiling a little, and leaned out to watch birds flit and whir and sing. A cool breeze had risen from the shadows to ghost past the rail, but she stood proud against it, not chilled in the slightest.
Wonder makes a very warm cloak.
Ljttle mumbling gods, more prettiness? My heart trfmbues, but my gokge risks/ flke of the pit, human, but you try me sorely! I suppose that was mystra working through you, and thus-by the thinnest, most twisting thinking-a fulfillment of my command.
Indeed.
Silence! When i have need of your cleverness, wizard, i'll not fail to inform you. You can avoid torment right now by showing me yourself wielding-openly and as a weapon in a banner useful to me and clearly revealed-power granted you ii y mystra. Impressive. Power, mind, not identifying the fragrance of flowers or some such frippery!
Thy command becomes my wish.
And thy mouth remains far too smart fob thy comfort, idiot wizard! Do as i command-now!
[flow of bright images, like stars poured down a well, quickening and growing broader, deeper... slowing, slowing... one radiance wells up to outshine all]
The line of blue fire blazed down the doors, sealing them. Ancient magics girded the hall, for all its ruined state, against wider Faerun outside. Here the most mighty had contended in formal duels for centuries upon centuries, fusing the stone into glassy flows, embedding desperate radiances... and leaving behind the smell of fear and the prickling tension of watching, bound and helpless spirits.
A smile crossed the face of the tall, impossibly thin combatant. It held no trace of mirth or friendliness.
"Did you think," the lien hissed in triumph, "that I'd come alone?"
A stalactite behind and above one bony shoulder blurred and descended-and became a floating sphere of many eyes. It drifted forward with dangling tentacles and many jaws snapping on stalks. From nearby shadows flew a bat-winged gargoyle waving a sword of black flame. A vast snake slithered out and lifted its gigantic, cruelly beautiful, human-seeming head. Near it stood a graceful she-elf with obsidian skin and spell-spun daggers whirling about her slender wrists.
These creatures strode or glided or floated down the hall to menace the lone challenger-a human not so tall or thin as the lich. He had little of a warrior's build and nothing about him sharper than his hawklike nose.
The human's eyebrows rose. "Strange bedfellows, indeed," he observed calmly. "Thy falling into league together-that's a tale I'd like to hear." He sat down on a piece of the tumbled stone beside him, propped his dusty boots on another stone, and got out his pipe. "Well?"
The lich stared. "Are you insane?"
The mage shook tobacco out of a little pouch and commenced to tamp it down into the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. "Probably," he replied cheerfully. Death advanced on him, spreading out with stealthy grace to outflank and surround him. "Are ye surprised?"
The lich did not bother to reply but instead snapped hurriedly, "Before Mysira and the Mages Arcane, I claim right of subsumption in this duel, that all my opponent's powers be granted to me-attack! "
Though the presence of allies and the failure to allow one party to claim before commencement were blatant breaches of the rules of Spelldown Hall, and though the creatures arrayed against him made death a swift certainty, the human puffed on his pipe and made no move.
As the first spell touched him-a bright bolt from the death tyrant-the hall was suddenly full of blue-white fire and a wordless singing that was both feminine and exultant. Drow limbs roared into flame and were gone. The gargoyle melted away into a brief whirling chaos of black flame and melting shards of sword. The gigantic snake burst like a boiled sausage and crumbled to dust. Silently, the beholder winked out.
As the last of its allies vanished, the disbelieving lich gasped, "How-?"
"Mystra gives ye greetings," the reclining human said pleasantly. He blew a smoke ring in the direction of his opponent before following it with the innocent question, "Does this mean ye don't want to tell me the tale of this little alliance?"
The lich's scream of fury was as wordless as Mystra's swelling song. Black flames and red roared out of its bony hands and snarled across the hall at the man with the pipe.
Elminster watched the flames come. As they struck home, he jerked his body this way and that in spasms that made his pipe shoot up to the ceiling. Smoke curled from his lips as he announced calmly, "Mystra niakes reply."
He closed his mouth. When he reopened it all the blue-white fire in Faerun poured forth, sweeping away one end of Spelldown Hall, frantic lich and all, in a single roaring instant...
Blue-white and so bright...
Aargh! Rrraaaaaghh! Oughhh!
[writhing flailing red-eyed pain, shuddering horns and tentacles, rocking and keening in helpless slithering agony, dying slowly to gasps]
[cautious peering, stealing forward from shadows to look at the smoking ruin of too many memories, with the smarting sentience of an archdevil smoldering at their heart]
Ohhh. Urghh. [slow roll over, curling of stiffened talons, flexing of torn tentacles, unfolding in the sudden absence of pain]
Sweet fires of Nessus!
Nergal?
If i thought you'd done that deliberately, wizard, i'd tear you limb from limb and savage your remains!
I but yielded what ye forcefully sought.
So you did. Though it showed me nothing useful such fury rarely comes forth when i open my mouth.
Oh, I might disagree with ye there....
Have your smile, little man. Torment will come to you again soon enough.
[rising from the ruin to stand and then stagger, tentacles questing forth, the light growing more as the search begins once more]
So that's what the fire or a goddess tastes like. Spare me no warnings in future, when i take hold of any similar surprises!
I know not, devil, what can surprise thee.
Really? Nether do I. [grim mental smile] Well, we'll just have to learn togeth-
Spinagons swooped and tumbled out of the blood-red sky. They fell upon a hulk and stabbed with forks and raked with feet. The thing reared up, scattering them with two thrusts of its tentacles, and bellowed, "Who dares-?"
Shrieking, the devils flapped out of the hollow, fleeing in babbling panic.
Nergal glared after them, able to snatch only one of his attackers. Snaking tentacles slowly tore one limb after another from that hapless, shrieking spinagon. One end of a tentacle thrust into its mouth, breaking the jaw to keep from being bitten, and remaining.That muffled the shrieks. Nergal shook his head.
Whether agents sent by a rival or merely brainless hunters, these flapping annoyances were an overdue warning. Lost in the enjoyment of rummaging human memories, he'd been leaving himself vulnerable. Not all the denizens of Avernus were wise enough to avoid an arch-devil. Others might well decide to try their luck with a wounded, reeling Nergal-to say nothing of the naked, puny crawling thing that was Hminster. Alone amid smoke and scuttling things a few gorges off, he was well on the way to blundering into the arms of Tasnya, or Oomrith, or Skeldagon, or half a dozen others.