There's worse? [wry amusement]

Oh, yes. Why, if y- but no. We'll not speak of such things. Trying to worm the secrets of hell our of me? Mortal, what the hell are you playing at?

[mental chuckle] Well said.

There was a moment of menacing silence, there on a smoking ridge in Avernus, before Nergal laughed too.

Human, i begin m think i'm going to miss you.

You're leaving? So soon? [mental snort]

Idiot. A jester among wizards, you are. Down, dog, and come hack this way with me, and i'll heal you a little. I don't want a trail of blood to bring us unwanted attention.

Where are we going?

Somewhere else. [bellow of laughter] Stew on that, clever wizard. Think humans are the only ones mighty in magic? Why, i know a spell that can bind a demon for a hundred years in the shape of a sword. We call them "doomblades." There are a dozen or more wandering around your precious toril right now, in various unwitting hands. You steal any swords lately, wizard?

Ah, how recently?

[gusts of laughter] Ah, elminster, you'll slay me yet!

Ahem. A figure of speech, of course.

En? Indeed, indeed. Little human bastard.

Silently, a pointed rock behind the archdevil moved, curling out like a dark finger....

Nergal let healing fire wash briefly over the shuddering human in his hands. He bent his will and watched his magic turn the scrawny man slowly into a creature of Hell: a nupperibo, bloated and dirty and yellow-white. With a tight smile he dropped Eminster to hang, choking and strangling, at the end of the spike-studded chain. Fresh blood flowed as his captive's new bulk was dashed helplessly against the barbs.

Nergal shook the chain, rattling his struggling captive against a rock. El clutched frantically at the chain to avoid having his neck broken. He danced for his life as the arch-devil threw back his head and laughed.

With a sudden, dark surge, the point of rock stabbed forward-and thrust through the laughing pit fiend like a gigantic spear tip.

Nergal screamed.

Impaled and aflame, the pit fiend flailed vainly at the skies, beat his great wings in agony, and staggered frantically forward. He dragged himself gorily off the rock. The spear of stone flashed blue-white, searing the shrieking devil each time.

When the outcast devil staggered free, it was visibly smaller, and trembled violently with each step. A sudden flurry of small explosions-erupting magic left in it by the stone-rocked its guts. Gore and entrails spewed in all directions. Shuddering and bent over, Nergal sagged to the stones of Avernus. He groaned and dwindled into a shuddering thing of tentacles.

The stone that had pierced the archdevil moved again. It arched over to touch the ground, its matter visibly flowing. The tip grew thicker, and straighter, standing tall and then... breaking away and taking a bold step out onto the sharp rocks of Hell.

A white-haired, bald wizard stood above the chained heap that was Elminster. His eyes blazed with blue-white flame as he spun a web of the same glowing hue around the captive mage.

The net touched the chain, crackled angrily along it, and collapsed. Halaster muttered a curse and raised his hands to weave another spell.

He was three murmured words into it when a cloud of stones streamed up from a ridge behind him. It hurtled down and smashed into the wizard, sending him flying with a startled cry. The stones crashed onto the rocks of Avernus and stopped bouncing. Halaster was somewhere beneath them, unseen... and unmoving.

"In Hell, human, you get only one strike" Nergal spat, rising into view from behind the ridge, his eyes flaming red. Four more boulders were clutched in his tentacles.^ult's best to make it a good one."

The heap of stones he'd hurled heaved once, twice- and then flew apart, a blue-white flame roaring up out of their heart.

Nergal sneered and fed it flames of black and ruby-red, hungrily clawing at the stones. They shattered into deadly spraying shards.

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.