Elminster in Hell (The Elminster Series) by Ed Greenwood

Author:Ed Greenwood [Greenwood, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786961603
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2011-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

NO! NO! MORE TIME WASTING! BEAUTIFUL HUMANS, BUT WHAT INTEREST HAVE I IN SUCH? MAGIC I WANT, CURSE YOU, HUMAN! HOW CAN YOU STILL DEFY ME? HOW?

[growling, firmly quelled]

NO, I’LL NOT TEAR AND SNARL? I’LL DIVE INTO YOUR MIND ONCE MORE AND THIS TIME SEEK BEINGS YOU RESPECT BUT DO NOT CONSORT WITH SO CLOSELY. WHAT ELSE WOULD EARN YOUR RESPECT BUT REAL POWER? MAGIC TO TAME KINGDOMS WITH! MAGIC I CAN USE!

[red eyes burning, striding into dark rooms and tearing down what images are found there, clawing aside and seeking more …]

* * * * *

“L-lady Queen?” The young lass quavered, her face dissolving into terror. She trembled violently, too frightened to move. She desperately wanted to be anywhere but here, anywhere but kneeling and proffering flowers to the queen of Aglarond in the royal gardens.

Her mother looked on with a face as white as chalk.

The Simbul, the witch whose spells tore Red Wizards to blood and bones and smashed down towers and made mountains shatter, had suddenly scowled. She scowled even now, her hair rising and twisting along her shoulders as if with a life of its own—no, many lives, all of them eager to blast and destroy and lay waste to little girls who dared to offer flowers.

A small sob dragged the Witch-Queen of Aglarond back to awareness. Her gaze met the wild, trapped eyes of the little girl who’d made the sound.

A chill went through the Simbul. Nothing should ever happen to make little girls look like that. She mustered the warmest smile she could, knelt to say, “My thanks,” and bestowed a royal kiss on the trembling forehead. “Be welcome always in our gardens,” she added, raising the still-fearful girl to her feet and turning her head to give the anxious mother a smile.

The courtiers standing around visibly relaxed. The girl darted away like a rabbit from under the royal hand, heading for the safety of her mother’s skirts.

At the Simbul’s elbow, the oldest of her guards dared to murmur, “You scowled, Majesty?”

The Simbul nodded. “I did. At a memory.”

“Ah,” the guard said, stepping back. No doubt a woman who’d slain hundreds of Red Wizards in frantic spell battle over years upon years had more than a few grim memories that might come to mind unbidden.

So she did, but what made the queen of Aglarond frown again as she turned away to walk a garden path was the fact that the memory was not her own. She could still hear her sisters’ helpless laughter over a romantic book, a fancy-novel … a moment new to her, but tattered and elusive in someone’s store of remembrances. But whose?

Whose mind could have touched hers so feebly? Whose?

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