The pain-wracked worm that Elminster had become undulated frantically away. Hot shards sliced into him and sizzled where they sank in.
The blue-white flame stood like a knife-blade in the heart of Nergal's spell flames. It erupted into a flurry of bolts that beheaded the tentacled devil.
"Hah!" roared a face that promptly grew on the end of a tentacle. "Thought you'd slain me, wizard? This is how you hurl a brightbolt spell!"
A flurry of bolts twice as large and numerous as Halaster's streaked back at the mage. The very stones on which he stood vanished in blast after blast that hurled the agent of Mystra into the air. Leaking blue-white flame, he fell back into the inferno of creaking, red-hot rocks and landed in a frantic whirl of magic. He staggered upright.
"I'm here for your blood, devil" Halaster snarled, raising hands that crackled with lightning.
"And I," Nergal snarled, growing scorpion-sting tails to match his many tentacles,"am here for yours!"
Halaster's spell-a bright net of silver lances linked by lightning and girded about with spirals of holy water- crashed down on the outcast devil. Nergal roared out his pain.
The ground under Halaster thrust up in huge fangs of dark, smoking devil bone, much as the mad wizard had first attacked Nergal. Like that attack, those fangs transfixed their target.
Screaming hoarsely, Halaster wriggled, impaled on what proved to be one of Nergal's tentacles-a tentacle that ended in a long, slender spike of bone. Shuddering off the effects of the archmage's spell, the outcast devil managed a short, ugly laugh and thrust his foe up into the air.
The thorn of bone was twice as tall as the man it pierced. Striking between the wizard's legs, it had thrust its way up through guts and lungs to burst out of Halaster's throat, shoving his head aside. Blue-white flames leaked from the mad wizard in a dozen places as his failing, darkening eyes sought Elminster.
"I'm... sorry," he gasped hoarsely."I-tried."
Blue-white flame blazed up and spun Halaster away from the bone-fang, leaving it bare. Fire whirled in a small, spinning sphere in the air. Nergal raised a taloned hand to rake it-but the sphere suddenly grew very small and very bright. Halaster tumbled inside it like a broken doll... winked out, and was gone.
Elminster and Nergal both blinked up at the empty blood-red sky. In unison, they dropped their gazes to peer around at the scorched and smoking rocks, seeking little dancing blue-white stars or some other evidence of Halaster's survival.
There was nothing like that to be seen.
Nergal laughed, a sound that began out of relief, and became gloating.
So flees your last hope, elminster.any more rescue pacts? Mages who own you enough to risk theik lives coming here? [weary silence]
I thought not. Well, then, let me dive into your shattered little mind again and see more memories of you meddling- only this time let it be with rulers and mages and adventurers, not any comely lass who happens by... It's magic i'm ahter, remember? Remember?
[mind lash, red pain, hasty flourish of bright images, fading and falling, then whirling up into a single display once more...]
"My lord," said the Simbul, and tears shone in her eyes, "I cannot stay longer. Those fools of Thay would try to wrest my land from me again. I am needed."
Elminster smiled.
The bard Storm Silverhand sat near, thoughtfully putting a better edge on her old and battered long sword. Only she and the Simbul knew him well enough to see the sadness hidden behind his eyes.
"Of course," he said simply, 'These things-as always- must be." He stepped forward with surprising speed and embraced her.
The morning sun shone bright and clear through the trees of Shadowdale. Leaf-shadows dappled the rocks on the rising flanks of Harper's Hill. Storm's blade flashed back the sun as she turned it, keeping silence.
In his old and deep voice, Elminster muttered things into the Simbul's hair, and she whispered words back. No other was meant to hear them. Storm took care that she did not. That was the way she was.
The two great archmages half-turned toward her as they parted. Storm saw the brief gleam of a large blue gem that Elminster put it into the Simbul's hand. " Tis a rogue stone," she heard him say. "It will bring ye to wherever I am, should ye need to see me in haste. Go, now. These partings grow no easier to me as the years pass."
The Simbul nodded, slipped the gem into a pocket of her girdle, and aimed back to kiss him impulsively. She whirled away in silence and leaped into the air, her black robes dwindling and flapping. A black falcon rose on swift wings into the sun, banked sharply eastward, and was gone.
The Old Mage stood silent and unmoving for long minutes, watching where she had gone. When the birds in the trees started their calls again, Storm slid her shining blade into its sheath and went to him.
In silence the two old friends linked hands and turned to go down the trail together.
After about a dozen paces, Elminster asked, "D'ye mind, lass, if I cry?"
Storm kissed his cheek softly and said, "Of course not. I think you should do so far more often."
"Romantic," he growled back, in mock disapproval.
"Fellow romantic," she replied, and put her ami comfortingly around him. He growled but did not pull free. She did not have to glance his way to know how wet his face had become.
How sweet. More lust and sugared words. Weep, little wizard, weep. I suppose such remembrances comfort you now, but i can't think why. I'd be raging. How much time you've wasted over females-just rut and move on, and save me all this "love.' there is no such thing as love.
For devils, no. I'm not a devil, Nergal.
But well on your way to being one, elminster. Belive me.
Oh? Is this something I should make a habit of?
[diabolic chuckle] on with it, wizard! You're wasting time again! Give it up, idiot-no one's going to rescue you now!
Show me what i seek, or at least what happened after you stopped embracing and crying and kissing.
As ye wish.
[bright images, flittering down, down]
She was young, slim, and very beautiful. Tarth swallowed and tried not to stare.
Silvery-gray hair flowed from her head in-long waves, curling smoothly about arms and tiny waist and long, long legs. She reclined in a low bough of an old indulwood tree, smoking a clay pipe and regarding him in thoughtful silence. Her eyes were blue-green, flecked with gold, and very large.
"Ah... well met!" said Tarth awkwardly, leaning on his staff. He'd plundered old magic in forgotten tombs across the Dragonreach, and peered into forbidden tomes in places both dusty and dangerous, but he'd never been so close to a beautiful female moon elf before.
Tentatively he bowed and smiled. She returned his smile, enchantingly. Tarth stared deep into those exquisite eyes and cleared his throat.
"I-I've traveled a long way, good lady, to reach this place. Could you tell me, please, where the tower of the sage Elminster stands?"
The elf-maiden nodded. "Up yonder path, past the pool," she replied, her voice husky, yet dancing. She giggled.
Tarth stared in helpless wonder.
A long, slim ami reached out to him. "This is his pipe, which I... borrowed. Will you return it for me?"
Tarth nodded. In a silent whirl of flashing limbs she vanished into the leafy shade overhead, leaving him holding the still-smoking pipe. He stared down at it for a moment, then peered vainly up again into the tree, shrugged, and went on.