Scream of Stone

39

25 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) The Land of One Hundred and Thirteen

The sky in Marek Rymiit’s tiny universe roiled and thundered. The clouds moved in many different directions at once, pulling away from the tall tower of dark stone atop the lone hill. Lightning arced across the horizon, making it appear as though the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen was contained in a cage of blue-white light.

Marek grinned and took a deep breath of air that reeked of dragon and ozone. He looked up again and spied the huge, sinuous form of Insithryllax diving in and out of the tortured gray-black clouds. The dragon’s batlike wings caught the air and rode it in great sweeping arcs. The wyrm kept the black firedrakes at a distance, and Marek could only rarely see one of the much smaller forms dart from cloud to cloud closer to the lightning-traced horizon.

The Red Wizard turned his attention to the stone-tiled roof of the tower upon which he stood. Before him, carefully scribed to sit in the exact center of the cylindrical structure, he had drawn a circle of chalk, blood, and magic. Placed at uneven but carefully delineated points around the circle were six candles made of wax mixed with the blood of an Abyssal tanar’rinot an easy commodity to get one’s hands on, even in Thay.

Looking up once again at the dragon circling high above him, Marek called out, “Stay close! I begin!”

The dragon tipped one wing and waved his head in response and began a sweeping descent toward the roof of the tower.

Marek set his hands in the first of a complex series of uncomfortable gestures and began to chant. The words stung his ears, and the foul language of a malignant civilization millennia dead grated in his dry throat until his voice sounded like the growl of a rabid dog. Ignoring the little aches and pains, the Red Wizard twisted his fingers through the series of gestures, and when he came to the last of them and the final word of the incantation, he took one step back from the circle.

A blue-violet glow traced the outside of the circle, one he’d carefully measured to be precisely sixteen feet in diameter, then poured into the middle as though the light was water filling a low pool from all sides.

Marek smiled when the bright light faded to a deep indigo. He looked up once more and made eye contact with the dragon.

Insithryllax tucked his wings to the sides of his black-scaled body and dived headfirst at the pool of indigo light. Before the dragon reached the top of the tower, a gout of red and black smoke belched from the circle of light, and the air around them was assaulted by the sound of a million people screaming while another million cried. Marek flinched away from the agonized cacophony, but the dragon never wavered in his downward pathnot until he was only feet above the circle, which had become a doorway into the heart of the Abyss.

The black dragon spread his wings, and a sound like a great ship’s sails catching a stiff wind drowned out the screams of the tormented. Insithryllax stopped in midair for the briefest momentless than one of Marek’s rapid, excited heartbeatsthen he dipped his head into the very Abyss itself and came out carrying the writhing form of what at first appeared to be a man.

Holding the squirming form in his mighty jaws, Insithryllax beat his wings once and fell away over the lip of the tower’s roof. As the tip of his right wing dropped from sight, Marek brought his hands together in a firm clap. The sound sent a shudder through the stone floor and the gate sent out a deafening crack in response. The candles and the circle both were gone, and a waft of acrid smoke remained, but otherwise the doorway to the horrific plane of chaos and evil was closed.

The Red Wizard took a deep breath and smiled, waiting.

Insithryllax, with a flapping of wings that made Marek stagger backward and hold onto a battlement lest he be blown over the side, rose above the roof. Like a cat toying with a mouse, the dragon snapped his neck and tossed the writhing form onto the roof. The gray-skinned creature rolled to a stop but was instantly on its feet and hissing its infernal rage at the black wyrm. Ignoring it, Insithryllax took wing, and before the demon even noticed Marek standing only a few feet away, the dragon was lost to the clouds.

“Be at peace, maurezhi,” Marek said.

The creature spun on him. The Red Wizard could feel its gray eyes fix on him though they held no iris or pupil. Its sinuous, grotesquely naked form was well muscled, especially in its legs, which were disproportionately huge compared to its upper body and head. Its feet were like a crocodile’s, with four big, pointed talons of yellowing, fungus-ravaged bone. It hissed at him, showing a mouth full of razor edged fangs.

“Calm yourself,” Marek said, passing a hand in front of the creature to enact a spell. “Be calm, so we can speak.”

The maurezhi seemed to deflate. It closed its mouth and stepped back, reaching out behind itself to lean against a battlement. Its eyes were the only part of it that didn’t seem to slow. They darted around, taking in the strict confines of the pocket dimension.

Insithryllax dived from out of the clouds and the demon watched it circle the tower once then land with startling grace on the battlements. Then the tanar’ri turned its attention back to Marek.

What are you? the thing hissed directly into Marek’s head in a voice like breaking glass. Human? What is this place?

“I am indeed human,” the Red Wizard said, stepping away from the demon but still exuding all the confidence he felt. “You will call me Master.”

The demon flinched at that and said, Master what?

Marek snapped his fingers and the demon’s forearm snapped. The creature howled in agony and grabbed the twisted limb. Its clawed hand hung limp at the end of it.

“You will call me Master,” the Red Wizard repeated.

Y-yes… the maurezhi begged, dipping its head low,… Master.

“Good,” Marek replied with a smile, and he snapped his fingers again.

The demon shrieked when its arm snapped back into place, then worried at it with its claws, surprised that it was not only repaired but that the pain was gone. Marek grinned, doubting the maurezhi would soon forget that lesson.

Why was I snatched from my torments, Master? the demon asked, and Marek could tell it still struggled with the title.

“Do you hunger?” the Red Wizard asked. Always, Master, the demon replied. Always. Marek remembered well his lessons on demonology. The vile maurezhi feasted on the flesh of their victims, and when they were done, they could assume the form of their former meal, only to move ever deeper into human society to eat, and eat, and eat.

“You will feast, then,” Marek promised it. “You will go to a human city on the world of Toril, and there you will find and devour a man named Pristoleph.”

"Pristoleph," the demon repeated, nodding, and a great drop of yellowish drool hung from the side of its black lips.

The dragon huffed and Marek turned his attention to the huge wyrm perched on the battlements and sneering down at the demon.

“Yes, my friend?” the Red Wizard asked.

“Isn’t Pristoleph surrounded by black firedrakes?” Insithryllax said.

“He is, yes,” Marek replied.

“And you feel you have to summon this thing from a universe away rather than just give the creatures you created yourself a single order?”

“The black firedrakes were created to serve the Ransar of Innarlith,” Marek said.

The dragon smiled a little and Marek tensed under the dragon’s scrutinya look that came painfully, infuriat-ingly close to patronizing.

“If you’ll watch and see,” Marek continued, “all will become clear to you, I’m sure. Really, Insithryllax. Where has your patience gone?”

The Red Wizard turned back to the demon and said, “Yes, Pristoleph. But first, you must wear a disguise.”

The demon’s form blurred. It stood more erect and its legs shrank. Clothing formed around it almost as though it was weaving itself from the thin air. In a breath or two the monstrous entity had been replaced by a black-skinned man in rough-spun clothes. The gray eyes turned white and circles of deep, penetrating brown formed in their centers.

“Nicely done,” Marek said, and the transformed maurezhi smiled a broad, gap-toothed grin. “But not precisely what I had in mind.”

Marek cast a spell and the demon in its human form shrank away, holding up arms that even then began to lose their healthy color to return to that pallid, awful gray. It was only back in its natural form for a moment before its legs came together, its joints popped, and its skin tore.

The demon howled in pain, but the transformation didn’t take long.

It looked down at itself, confused at first, but then the admiration for its new shape was written plainly on its new face. The demon twitched its new body, testing its own ability to move like a snake moves. Its face looked more human than it had moments before, but when it opened its mouth, a long, thin tongue that ended in a fork flicked over its lips.

“There,” the Red Wizard said, “that’s better. Now, since I know you’ll be loath to tell me your name, I’ll have to give you a new one.”

“A name?” the demon asked aloud, surprised by the hissing sibilance of its new voice.

“Svayyah,” Marek said.