Forsaken House

CHAPTER 18

12 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms

Araevin trotted swiftly through the damp, rain-soaked trees of Cormanthor, distancing himself from the vault behind him. He deliberately avoided the old elfroad, just on the chance that the daemonfey might discover his freedom and their dead comrades and come looking for him. The side of his chest still burned with the broken ribs the behir had given him, and various other injuries announced themselves as he traveled, but he refused to give the pain a place in his thoughts, and instead considered what to do next as he jogged on.

Ilsevele first, he thought. And Maresa too. I have to get them out of Sarya's hands before the daemonfey discover my escape. All I have to do is walk into the demons' den.

Armed as he was with a mind full of spells and abjurations as potent as anything he could ever have prepared in his own workroom, Araevin didn't shy from returning to the daemonfey halls. He even thought he might have an unpleasant surprise or two for them.

This should do, Araevin decided.

He looked around at the wet woodland and shivered. The vault of Ithraides, with its teleport-distorting spell wards, lay two miles behind him. He was well outside its magical mantle.

"Now, for the difficult part," he breathed.

Gesturing absently, he prepared a couple of defensive spells to protect himself-one that covered him in an intangible shield of magical force, and another to turn himself invisible. He gazed around at the forest, breathing in the scent of spring rising from hidden roots and deep places.

Hold it in your mind, Araevin, he told himself. It might be the last good thing you look on in this life.

Then he incanted the teleport spell, fixing in his mind the image of the marble-floored cavern in the daemonfey stronghold.

The forest reeled away into darkness, and he felt himself falling through icy void for the space of an instant-then he appeared in the dim, lamplit halls of the daemonfey.

Araevin did his best to avoid making any sound as he arrived, but he couldn't stop a soft gasp as the suddenness of the change staggered him. Fortunately, no one was in the hall. It was cold and forbidding even in the absence of its infernal masters, a stark and comfortless place where the air carried a subtle taint of blood and hot metal. Several passageways led away from the room, he presumed to other halls and chambers. At his back the hall ended in a crevasse or natural chimney that climbed up into the dark and fell away into measureless shadow below.

"What is this place?" he muttered.

He turned, studying the room again and trying to guess which way his friends might have been taken. His eye fell on the dark pool of blood where Grayth had died.

Any fear or uncertainty he might have entertained vanished like yesterday's winds.

Information is the first order of business, he decided.

He held himself still and closed his eyes, listening and feeling for the magical ward he had noted when Nurthel brought him before Sarya. If he was right about it…

"I thought so," he murmured.

As before, he felt the peculiar magical vibration or resonance of a mythal ward embracing him. It was not a sound, a smell, or any sort of physical sensation he could accurately describe, but something in the very air and rock of the place announced itself to his wizard's senses. There was no doubt the daemonfey stronghold was protected by a mythal stone, and a strong one at that.

How did Sarya raise a mythal in secret? he wondered.

More likely she'd found one and repaired it, he answered himself. It would require patience and lore, but there's no reason to think that the daemonfey lack either.

Araevin paused, considering his next move. He glanced around to make sure that he was still alone, and moved to a somewhat more sheltered corner of the room just in case. He had intended to immediately set about searching for Ilsevele and Maresa with his divinations, but it occurred to him that the mythal's properties might include alarms or spell traps against intruders. Each one of the old mythals was unique, and there was really no way of knowing what spells might or might not have been woven to shield the place before the daemonfey found it, or for that matter, whether or not the original spells still worked as intended. Old mythals tended to fray with time, and their powers sometimes faded away or decayed into new and dangerous properties unplanned by their makers.

It would help him judge the dangers of the mythal if he knew how long ago and by whom it had been raised. He was pretty sure Sarya's stronghold was somewhere in the North. After all, the daemonfey army had marched on Evereska from somewhere in the vicinity of old Hell-gate Keep-but Hellgate Keep itself had been completely destroyed. Most likely he was in some forgotten hold or vault of ancient Siluvanede or Sharrven, but he could not be certain.

"Enough speculation," he told himself.

He spoke one of the spells Saelethil had taught him, coaxing the mythal's woven web of ancient spells to become visible to him. All around him a bright golden network of drifting strands of magic slowly appeared.

Araevin carefully observed the tangible dweomers pervading the hall, analyzing them. First he looked for signs of alarms or spell traps that would catch the unwary. He spotted an alarm first, a spell designed to warn anyone within the mythal if a non-daemonfey spellcaster entered the ruins-a reasonable precaution, given the nearness of Silverymoon and Alustriel. He grimaced, realizing that again the faint blemish in his bloodline turned to his advantage. Then he examined the drifting thread more closely, and saw that it was a dark and potent red-gold in color. It was clearly something new, something added to the existing mythal.

Sarya has modified the mythal! he realized.

"I didn't think that was possible," he breathed.

Of course it's possible, Saelethil's memory told him. If none of the mythal-raisers contest your efforts, you can modify a standing mythal. It is strenuous and requires a little lore, but it can be done.

Araevin examined the mythal-weave again. There he saw a corrupted thread that would cause spells of magical force to fail if cast within the mythal's field. Another fraying weave allowed a knowledgeable caster to control the temperature within the mythal's bounds. A more intact strand would permit him to use the mythal's powers to enhance his own spells, making them swifter and more powerful.

"That's a useful trick," he noted.

More wards blocked scrying by those who did not know the proper key.

Araevin turned his attention to the founding ward, the strongest and most pervasive of all the magic streams, and there he found the lethargic golden trunk of the original ward warped by a strong new stream of burnished red-gold, like a strangling vine parasitizing an old tree. Sarya had twisted the first and primary warding the mythal offered. Araevin frowned and studied it more closely. In ancient times, he could see that the ward had been designed to absolutely bar the entrance of creatures who had knowingly consumed elf- or man-flesh. In the days when orcs, trolls, and demons besieged the North, it would have been a formidable bulwark against their armies. But Sarya had perverted that ward, and instead was using it to anchor something else in place. Hundreds of fine red filaments frayed out from the great ward, disappearing into the ether.

"Demons," he whispered. "That is how the Dlardrageths are summoning so many demons. They're using the mythal to do it."

Despite the fearsomeness of Araevin's newfound lore, he still felt sick. To see an ancient and noble work such as the mythal enslaved to a purpose its builders would have reviled simply turned his stomach.

He might be able to do something about that. But first he had to locate Ilsevele and Maresa.

Araevin closed his eyes and murmured the words of a powerful and unusual divination. In the air above his head, a dozen faint, ghostly orbs appeared. Each was a semitangible spell construct the size of a small apple, with a single black pupil in its center. They were not invisible, but they were small and translucent, hard to see unless someone happened to look right at one.

"Spread out and search this place," he whispered to them. "Return and report if you find Ilsevele or Maresa, or in ten minutes if you don't."

At once the orbs wheeled and arrowed off in all directions, speeding through the shadowed stronghold and quickly vanishing from Araevin's sight. While the mythal prevented scrying divinations, if he was right in his assessment of the mythal's capabilities, it would not interfere with that particular spell. He folded his arms and waited, straining to detect the least sound that might indicate that his spying orbs had been seen or his own presence detected.

The moments crawled by as he waited motionless in the dimly lit hall. Then the first of his orbs returned, speeding to him. He caught the tiny thing in his hand and focused his attention on it.

"Report," he said.

Araevin's mind filled with the image of a rapid flight through one of the passages exiting the room, up a set of stairs, down one corridor to a dead end, then to the other end of the corridor where a pair of fey'ri swordsmen stood guard over a short hall filled with cell doors. He seemed to peer into the cells one by one, spotting Ilsevele and Maresa almost at once. They had been stripped of their weapons and armor, and seemed a little worse for the wear, but both were alive and awake. The view spun away again as the orb returned. Fortunately, it seemed that the jailors hadn't noticed its passage.

The orb dissipated in his hand, its task complete. Araevin looked up at the hallway it had followed. His companions were not far off, but he decided to wait a few minutes and see what else he might learn from his spying spell.

One by one his orbs returned, and he examined the findings of each. By the time he was finished, Araevin had a good sense of the layout of the place. The rift led up to a ruined city above, and from it, like the spokes of a buried wheel, radiated passages and halls. Forges, armories, storerooms, barracks… the place was a small fortress, hidden beneath the forgotten ruins above. He glimpsed a dozen or so fey'ri in various places, plus a handful of demons and yugoloths, most of whom seemed to be assigned to guard duties. Otherwise, the stronghold was almost vacant, and the majority of its halls and corridors were empty and silent. Sarya's army was not at home.

The final orb to report held a surprise he had not expected: Below him, near the bottom of the shaft, he glimpsed a large boulder of pale pinkish stone, half-covered with green moss.

The mythal stone! he realized.

Araevin filed away the glimpses shown by his orbs, and set out down the hallway leading to the daemonfey dungeon.

Tor Evermeet!" Seiveril cried.

With Fflar at his side and the Knights of the Golden Star at his back, he hurled himself headlong into the foul tide of demons who sought to encircle the crusade. There was nothing to gain by avoiding the fighting anymore. No orders he might give could possibly affect the outcome, as the battle of maneuver was clearly done with. All that remained was to slay or be slain.

The Golden Star raised a high, clear war cry that echoed across the twilit moorlands. Chancing falls and broken legs, they spurred their elven coursers toward the wave of demons, who gladly leaped forward to meet them. Hellborn fangs, claws, and sorcery met elven steel magic in a tremendous collision that shook the battlefield.

Seiveril's war-horse reared and plunged, beset on both flanks by the hulking, chitinous forms of mezzoloths. One jabbed its iron trident at Seiveril while the other lunged low, seeking to gut his horse. But the elflord managed to wrench his mount's reins aside and dance the horse away from the second fiend while parrying the strike of the first with his holy mace. He turned toward the first mezzoloth and rode close up on it, standing in his stirrups to smash down at its head and shoulders with all his strength. Chitin split and ichor flew, and the monster went down beneath the stamping silver-shod hooves of his mount.

Seiveril wheeled to parry the attack he expected from the second mezzoloth, but that one was gone, swept away by the tide of battle. In its place a grossly obese hezrou battled with its back to him, battering at one of Gaerth's knights with its long, clawed arms. He rode three steps closer and slammed the spiked mace head between the toadlike demon's shoulder blades. The thing howled abominably, but it did not die-demons were difficult to kill, at best. Instead it spun around and struck him a backhand blow with its ogrelike fist that knocked the elflord clean out of his saddle.

Seiveril grunted as he hit the ground, but there at least the moorland was a blessing-he landed on a tuft of stiff grass that helped to break his fall. The elflord glanced up just in time to find demons scrabbling toward him from all sides, fangs dripping with venom, eyes aglow with the power of the hells.

From his knees he spoke a single word of power, a holy word of Corellon Larethian so mighty that no evil creature could endure its utterance. Several of the demons nearby disappeared with wails of agony, instantly banished back to their infernal domain by the power of the word. Others reeled away stunned, black blood trickling from their ears, smoke rising from their foul bodies.

"That's better," Seiveril managed, and found his feet again.

All around him the battle between the Golden Star knights and the demonic allies of the daemonfey raged without respite. The collision of armies had devolved into hundreds of individual encounters. Fortified by their magic, the elf knights were giving as good as they got. Blasts of argent light and bursts of holy wrath tore through the demonic ranks, while hastily raised spell shields parried or deflected many of the demon's own unholy blights and scourges of hellfire. But elves were falling on all sides, dragged down into blood and death by their infernal foes, and powerful sorcerers in the daemonfey ranks strove to pull down or pierce the elven spell shields. Horses screaming in mortal agony, the awful din of metal on metal, angry war cries, and roars of bestial wrath threatened to drive all thought from him.

"By the Seldarine, what a disaster," he breathed.

"Seiveril! Are you hurt?" Fflar called as he rode into the small circle Seiveril's holy word had cleared.

Keryvian agleam like a bolt of pure sunlight in his hand, Fflar struck left and right as he approached, cleaving demon flesh and searing yugoloths with the sword's terrible power.

"I'm well enough," Seiveril answered, even though he was surprised to find that something had torn deep furrows in the mailed skirt guarding his hips. He limped over to his war-horse and awkwardly swung himself back up into the saddle, while Fflar stood guard. aWe have to reform, regroup! This is not the battle we meant to fight!"

Fflar shook his head and replied, "There's no place to go. We're hemmed in on all sides. We have to stand our ground, or press forward and cut our way out. There is no retreating now!"

"But we are being slaughtered!"

"Yes, but so are the daemonfey. We will simply have to slaughter a little better than they do tonight, my friend," Fflar said. He wheeled his horse, and pointed with his sword. "Look there!"

Seiveril followed his captain's sword point. Amid a foul phalanx of demons hovered a great brazen disk or platform, its sides armored and scribed with ancient Elvish writings. From its deck he glimpsed fey'ri hurling spell after spell into the melee.

"I see it," he answered.

"Our scouts reported seeing it at the Battle of the Cwm. The daemonfey general is there!" "Guard me," Seiveril replied.

He began to cast a powerful summoning. His voice rose and fell in the ancient holy words of the invocation. He noticed that Fflar turned to drive off another trio of demons prowling closer, but he paid it no mind, focusing on completing his spell. He called out the last words and held Corellon Larethian's symbol high-and the ground shook again, fountaining water and mud. Before Seiveril rose up a titanic mound of animated earth and rock, an elemental the size of a small tower.

"Destroy the battle-platform!" he cried to his summoned elemental.

The colossal creature turned ponderously and marched toward the enemy spellcasters, simply burying lesser demons and fiends who could not get out of its way. A whole barrage of magic abruptly shifted to the elemental. Seiveril watched its progress, but then Fflar grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed his head down, just as a thrown spear sailed over him. The battle was returning, and quickly.

"We need a plan!" Seiveril growled, turning to face the newest threat.

"I advise, fight hard and don't get killed," Fflar answered.

The moon elf warrior raised a war cry and charged at the enemy ranks. Seiveril hesitated, then followed the champion of Myth Drannor into the fray again.

Padding quietly through the chill stone corridors of the daemonfey stronghold, Araevin followed the path traced by his orb, still cloaked in his invisibility spell. It seemed that he need not have bothered, since he met no enemies as he passed through the empty hallways. Sarya's war against Evereska and the High Forest had emptied the place, or close to it.

Araevin climbed the long, winding steps leading up to the level of the prison, and turned to the right as he had previously seen. Ahead he saw a dim glimmer of lamplight, and heard the low sound of voices in conversation. He slowed his steps even further and crept close to the guardroom's entrance, staying near to the right-hand wall even though he was mantled in invisibility. There were spells that negated invisibility, after all, and the fey'ri were skillful enough as sorcerers to know such invocations. He reached the doorway and risked a quick glance inside.

Three fey'ri stood watch over the hallway with its cells.

There were two of them a few minutes ago, he thought. Is there a change of the watch coming?

He decided that it didn't matter. He was too close to Ilsevele and Maresa to wait on events, not when he couldn't be certain of avoiding discovery for long. Stepping around the corner, he quickly evoked a devastating blast of multicolored rays at the three fey'ri. Potent beams of brilliant yellow, sullen red, and vivid blue lashed out at the daemonfey even as they scrambled to their feet, warned by the arcane words Araevin used to unleash the spell. Magical power filled the air with a deafening crackle, and the bright rays destroyed the dark shadows of the room with a sudden burst of light as bright as the sun.

When Araevin's sight cleared, one fey'ri stood petrified, transformed to stone by one of the prismatic rays. The second slowly picked himself up from the floor, his scaly flesh puckered and sizzling from the terrible acid of the orange ray. The third fey'ri was simply gone-disintegrated by multiple rays or blasted into some far plane, Araevin neither knew nor cared. His invisibility spell spoiled by his attack, he drew Nurthel's iron short sword with one smooth motion and charged the remaining fey'ri.

The fellow bared his fangs in a sinister snarl and started a spell of his own, but Araevin closed on him before he could finish casting. He took three fingers off the fey'ri's hand and spoiled the enemy's spell.

"You will die for that, paleblood!" the demonspawn hissed.

He drew his own sword with his good hand-a short blade of sinister reddish iron-and parried two more of Araevin's attacks before going on the offensive, snarling and spitting as he tried to bat the elf s sword aside and get inside his guard. Their blades met two times, then three, and Araevin circled his point under the fey'ri's blade and sank Nurthel's sword just under the fellow's ribs, where his breastplate met the mail of his shirt. The fey'ri staggered back two steps, then sank to the floor.

Araevin seized a set of keys hanging from a peg on one wall, and hurried into the dungeon. He found Ilsevele's door first, and after fumbling with the keys, he threw open the cell.

"Ilsevele! "

Ilsevele stared up at him in amazement and said, "Araevin? But how-?"

"Explanations can wait," he promised her. He knelt beside her and took her in his arms. "Are you well? Did they hurt you?"

She shook her head and replied, "I was not handled at all gently, but it could have been much worse. They said they were saving me for one of their lords, who was away fighting in the High Forest." She shuddered. "What they told me about him… I think I would have taken my own life first."

"That won't be necessary," Araevin said.

Beneath her bruised visage he could glimpse the marks despair and fear had left on her, but she rapidly rallied, her courage and hope rekindling like a blaze springing up from a tiny ember.

"Maresa is nearby," she said, struggling to her feet. "We must free her, too."

"I know. Here, take this in case we get into a fight."

Araevin handed Ilsevele Nurthel's short sword, then he moved to the cell where he had seen the genasi and quickly unlocked that one as well.

"Maresa?" he called.

The genasi looked up at him, her snow-white skin pale as moonlight in the shadows of the cell.

"Could you have made any more noise in the guardroom?" she snapped. "It sounded like a damned thunderstorm out there."

Araevin asked, "Do you want me to go back and try to do it more quietly?"

"Too late for that now," Maresa said. She climbed to her feet and brushed off her scarlet tunic. She met Araevin's eyes, and the determination in her face softened just a bit. "Not that I'm ungrateful, of course. How in the world did you manage this? The last I saw you, you were enslaved by Sarya's enchantments."

"I will tell you both the whole story later. Suffice it to say that I am no longer under her control." Araevin looked up and down the hall. "Here, Maresa, you take this wand. The command word is nemehl. It fires a bolt of disrupting power, so make sure you do not point it at anyone you are fond of."

"Don't worry about that," said Maresa. She took the wand, baring her teeth in a predatory smile.

"Araevin, there's another prisoner here, down at the end of the hall," Ilsevele said. "I heard her sobbing yesterday. We must take her with us, if we can."

Araevin and his companions quickly checked the other cells, finding them all empty except for one. A small sun elf woman, hardly more than a girl really, lay curled on the floor, so weary and heartbroken that she had actually passed from Reverie into actual sleep, something that elves did only when gravely ill or wounded. They unlocked the door and moved in to rouse the girl.

"Hello? Are you well enough to walk?" Ilsevele asked, kneeling by the elf lass.

The girl roused herself, and looked up at the three of them with astonishment. She was dressed in the sturdy pants and tunic of a traveler, and Araevin noticed that she wore the padded arming coat of a suit of heavy armor that had obviously been taken from her. She seemed a little on the slight side to be a warrior.

A cleric? he wondered.

"Who are you?" she managed.

"I am Ilsevele Miritar. Until a few moments ago, I was a captive like you. This is Maresa Rost, and this is Araevin Teshurr, our rescuer."

"I am Filsaelene Merwyst. Can you really get me out of here?"

"We will try," Ilsevele promised. "How long have you been here, Filsaelene? How did the daemonfey capture you?"

The girl sat up, her arms wrapped around her torso, and said, "About two months, I think. I was traveling with a company of adventurers, heading for the old ruins of Elvenport. The fey'ri ambushed us near the ruins of

Hellgate Keep. They… they killed my companions, but they told me that they spare sun elves." She shivered, and added dully, "They said I would make good breeding stock."

"Aillesel Seldarie", Ilsevele breathed. "Did they-?"

"No, not yet," Filsaelene said. "They seem to have almost forgotten me. I think they are engaged in some dark enterprise or another, something that has absorbed their attention for several tendays now. I heard many more fey'ri here for a time before most of them left."

"How did the fey'ri bring you here?" said Araevin.

"I was marched here. It's only thirty miles or so from Hellgate Keep."

"Do you know where this place is?" Araevin asked.

Despite his success in teleporting to the daemonfey hall, he had no idea where it stood.

"Beneath the ruins of Myth Glaurach. We're in the northern end of the Delimbiyr Vale, in the foothills of the Nether Mountains. You teleported here, then?"

"Yes," Araevin answered. "And that is how I intend to leave."

Araevin looked at Ilsevele and Maresa. All he wanted was to take them out of danger at once, but if he did so, Sarya would soon discover their escape. For that matter, she would not be long in discovering Nurthel's failure. When she did, she would likely reexamine the defenses she had woven over Myth Glaurach's mythal, and she might have skill enough to ensure that Araevin would not be able to easily return. He had an opportunity that he might not have later, an opportunity important enough to hazard his life, as well as the lives of his companions.

"We should get moving," he said. "There is something I want to do before we leave."

"What is that?" Ilsevele asked.

"This place is guarded by a mythal stone that the daemonfey have turned to their own purposes. I think I can do something about it. Without the mythal's defenses, there will be nothing to obscure our scrying spells or deflect our attacks against this place. I suspect that the daemonfey would find its loss hard to bear, though it means delaying our departure for a short time."

"You can damage mythals?" Ilsevele asked in surprise. "I didn't realize you knew such lore."

"I didn't, but I do now," Araevin answered. "I will explain that later, as well."

"I can't say I like the idea of staying here one minute longer than I have to," Maresa said. "But if we can set something on fire before we leave, I'm all for that."

"I trust your judgment, Araevin," said Ilsevele.

"This way, then."

He led them to the guardroom, where the two dead fey'ri lay crumpled on the floor. There they found a sturdy vault in which the prisoner's belongings-or most of them, anyway-had been stored. In a few moments, Maresa had her rapier on her hip and her crossbow in her hands, while Ilsevele shrugged her mithral shirt over her shoulders and restrung her bow. Filsaelene put on a breastplate emblazoned with the symbol of Corellon Larethian, and armed herself with a slender long sword.

"Everybody ready?" Araevin asked.

His comrades nodded, determination plain on their faces.

Araevin began another spell, and drew a glowing portal of blue energy in the air.

"Follow me quickly, before the door closes," he said, then he ducked through, reappearing an instant later in the well of the mythal stone.

The chamber was much as he had envisioned it from the glimpse his spell eyes had afforded. It was a bell-shaped space, high and wide, at the bottom of a shaft that rose up into illimitable darkness. The floor was natural rock, rough and uneven, and in the center stood the mythal stone, a boulder about eight feet in diameter and somewhat flattened. The only remarkable thing about the stone was its color, a rosy pinkish hue that seemed almost translucent. Striated bands of green moss clung to its lower surface. He could feel the magical power in the air, as intense as a slap in the face. The only illumination in the room was a thin golden phosphorescence that seemed to dance on the walls, as faint as an aurora.

Ilsevele, Maresa, and Filsaelene followed him through the blue doorway, which faded an instant later. They stared at the mythal, silent with awe.

"Keep watch for me," Araevin told them. "I will be busy for a short time. Be on guard against enemies teleporting into the room. My efforts may be detected."

"That's a cheerful thought," Maresa muttered, but she moved to comply. The women spread out, surrounding Araevin and the mythal. Araevin glanced at his companions to make sure he knew where they were in case he had to flee quickly. Then he turned to address the mythal.

First he cast his spell of magesight again. As before, the mythal's weave of interlocking enchantments and wards became visible to him, brighter and even more clear than before. The mythal itself was a great, blazing sphere of gold, its depths complex and ever-shifting like the dancing of a great flame. The red-gold strands of the daemonfey modifications crisscrossed the surface of the sphere, but did not enter its depths. Much as a red glass held before a lantern would change the color of the light produced, so Sarya's spells altered the effects produced by the mythal without changing its essential nature.

She knows something about what she is doing, he decided. But her understanding is incomplete. She could have anchored those strands in the very fundament of the mythal, but she lacked the mythalcraft to do so.

Of course, he himself could not have perceived even that much without the knowledge the Nightstar had grafted to his mind.

"It's a good thing Sarya did not get her hands on the Nightstar," he murmured. "If she had had access to Saele-thil's lore, she could have done terrible things indeed."

"What do you see, Araevin? Can you do what you thought you might be able to do?" Ilsevele asked.

Even with the magical training she had, it was clear that she did not perceive the mythal stone as he did.

"I believe so," he said.

He took a deep breath, and began to speak the words of a high and complex spell he was attempting for the first time. One of the spells recorded in the Nightstar, it was not a spell of high magic, but it was close. It stood near the pinnacle of what was possible without high magic, and few mages could have mastered its difficult symbology and intricate weavings. When he had prepared spells from the selukiira in Ithraides' vault, he'd readied the powerful evocation on the chance that his suspicions about Sarya's mythal might prove true.

The spell allowed a knowledgeable mage to modify mythals. It would never work against a mythal whose creators could oppose it, or even against a mythal secured in the proper way by a new master, but Myth Glaurach's mythal had no living defenders-or none who chose to present themselves, anyway-and its powers were open to all spellcasters who stood within its bounds. In the days of Eaerlann, that might have been a sign of trust: trust in the power of the mythal's wards to keep evil influences outside, trust in the wisdom of Myth Glaurach's leading wizards to intervene against any abuse of the mythal's power, even a sign of trust in the good intentions of those who entered the City of Scrolls. Araevin doubted that Sarya shared such trust. She simply lacked the mythal-craft to seal the device, or possibly even understand that it could be sealed. On the other hand Saelethil had no such lack.

Araevin felt his perception sinking into the great golden orb at the mythal's heart. Carefully he sifted through the strands of magic until he found the shining white filaments that represented the laws binding and governing the device. With the care of a master musician seeking to elicit a single perfect note from his instrument, Araevin focused his willpower into a pure blade of thought, and reached in to adjust the mythal's governing.

Stop.

Araevin looked up, startled. He sensed that he was in two places at once. On the physical level, he stood a few feet from the pale pink stone, his eyes closed in concentration, one hand extended toward the device. His companions watched him anxiously. But the voice had not come from there. The voice had emerged from the metaphysical, the level of thought and magical consciousness in which his mind was engaged.

You are not Sarya, the voice continued. It was a melodious and powerful voice, a voice that hinted at great beauty and wisdom, but there was a dark timbre to it that Araevin did not care for. He studied the mythal closely, but he saw no sign of another mind. Who are you?

Who wants to know? he replied, standing on his guard, summoning his willpower to repel a mental assault if such a thing should come.

I am not to be bantered with. Identify yourself at once.

Araevin sensed the menace and towering willpower behind the words, but he relaxed his guard. The speaker was not present in the mythal. He was speaking through the device in some way, using the mythal as a medium.

I am Araevin Teshurr. To whom am I speaking?

Sarya will destroy you for playing with her toy, the voice observed. You would be well advised to desist in your use of the mythal, and flee before she returns.

I intend to take Sarya's toy away from her. And I note that you have still not answered my question.

Is this a coup of sorts? Do you think to overthrow your mistress and replace her? The voice laughed, a curiously childlike sound for the menace and power behind it. All right, then. If you succeed, I will consent to extend to you the same arrangements I offered Sarya.

What arrangements? Araevin asked. Who are you?

I am Malkizid. You may contact me through the mythal stone. But do not trouble me until you have deposed Sarya. I have no interest in dealing with underlings.

Then the voice was gone, and with it the sense of menace.

He returned his attention to the governing concordance of the mythal, and with one decisive stroke he imposed a new set of rules to restrict access to the mythal's powers. Only spellcasters without the stain of evil in their souls would gain the benefit of the mythal's abilities. Then he added a secure lock to prevent the governance from being rewritten again, creating a magical password to protect the mythal from further changes. An original creator of the device, if any still lived, would be able to contest Araevin's restrictions. But Sarya would find them difficult to overcome indeed.

With that attended to, Araevin looked for the brazen strands of Sarya's weaving. With one quick cut he unbound them all. Spells and wards of a dozen varieties abruptly discorporated, fading into nothingness. The myriad strands anchoring Sarya's summoned demons to Faerun vanished as well. Araevin was not certain if the monsters would be destroyed, banished, or simply fade back into their own native dimensions, but he was sure that they would not long remain in Faerun, whatever happened. He ended his spell and brought himself back to wakefulness in the real, physical world.

"It is done," he announced.

Ilsevele glanced around, surprised and asked, "Are you sure? It doesn't seem like anything has changed."

"I've severed the daemonfey from this mythal. They will miss its power very shortly, I think. We should get out of here before they do. Everybody, join hands."

"I'm all for that," Maresa replied. "Where are we going?"

Araevin hesitated.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead," he admitted. "Evereska?"

"What in the world?" Seiveril whispered.

He paused in his fighting, staring at the scene around

The others nodded agreement. He stepped over to his companions, rested one hand over Ilsevele's and the other over Maresa's, and cast the final teleporting spell he had readied for the day. The four of them disappeared from the daemonfey vaults beneath Myth Glaurach. him. He was not alone. Elf, fey'ri, orc, and ogre alike looked up in amazement.

Every demon on the battlefield stood transfixed, screeching in immortal rage and agony as brilliant white spears of light struck down from above, pinning each in place. Tendrils of colorless power arced and snapped from demon to yugoloth, covering the battlefield in an electric web of magical fire.

The white spears of light grew brighter still, broadening into shining columns that engulfed the monsters of the lower planes.

The pillars of light vanished all at once, and with them each of the demons, devils, yugoloths, and fiends who had marched with the daemonfey army. Seiveril sensed the abrupt banishment of the monsters from Faerun as a wave of icy severance that rippled across the battlefield and back again. He blinked the afterimage of the brilliant spears from his eyes, astonished.

"Seiveril! What just happened?" Fflar demanded.

The moon elf shielded his eyes with his left forearm, holding Keryvian in his right. Despite all the blood the ancient baneblade had spilled that evening, its steel was still pure and unsullied. The holy fire of the sword burned it clean of demon blood.

"The demons were unsummoned," Seiveril answered. "They're banished. Whatever was holding them here has failed."

"Will they return?" Fflar turned, sweeping his eyes over the battlefield on all sides. "Are they truly banished, Seiveril?"

"I believe they are," Seiveril replied.

He had sufficient skill in summoning spells to recognize the end of one when he saw it. He surveyed the battlefield, looking for any sign of the fiends. Everywhere he looked, the remaining warriors of both sides still stood amazed.

The left flank, where the Knights of the Golden Star and Seiveril's bladesingers and spellsingers had battled against hundreds of the daemonfeys' demon allies, was virtually denuded of enemies. In a single stroke Seiveril's best warriors had been left in complete command of their corner of the moorland with no more enemies surrounding them or keeping them from going to the aid of the hard-pressed center and right.

The battered battle-platform began drifting back toward the fey'ri legion that stood behind Seiveril's force, awkwardly climbing over the jumbled remnants of the huge elemental Seiveril had sent to attack it. From somewhere far away came the single, solitary ring of steel meeting steel, and the battle began to resume, as more and more warriors turned back to their foes and redoubled their efforts to overcome each other.

"The sorcerers in that damned floating fortress are retreating," Seiveril observed.

"That is a good sign," Fflar grinned. "I think I like these odds a little better. So what now?"

"Reform the knights. We'll swing back toward the south and turn east to take the damned fey'ri in the flank. If we can defeat them, the orcs and ogres will break."

Seiveril glanced up into the dark skies overhead. Stars were beginning to appear through the violet wisps of the day's overcast, illuminated by the last faint rays of the sunset far to the west. The clouds were breaking up. It would be a clear and starry night.

"I don't know what became of the demons," Seiveril said, "but the Seldarine are smiling on us tonight."

The western skies still glowed with the fading gold of sunset over Evermeet. Amlaruil strolled along a balcony of the palace, looking down over the dark streets of Leuthilspar as one by one the warm lanterns of the elven city began to wake beneath the stars. The night was cool and the sea-breezes growing stronger. She listened to the voice of the waves and the wind, even as her handmaidens laughed and chattered behind her.

Zaltarish walked at her side, a thin staff in his hand.

"You must give Lady Durothil an answer of some kind soon," he said. "If nothing else, she will insist on a date by which you will reach your decision concerning the council."

"I meant what I said," Amlaruil began. "Filling the council is my prerogative, not hers, and I will do so in the time and manner that-"

Her eyes opened wider, and she drew in a small gasp. There was something in the Weave, subtle, a distant vibration as if a great, deep harp string had been touched a great distance away. Her step faltered and she gripped the balustrade, turning to peer east over the dark sea.

"What is it, my queen?" Zaltarish asked softly.

"High magic in Faerun," the queen said. "Not a true spell of high magic, only the… touching of one. It resonates in the Weave."

The scribe followed her eyes toward distant Faerun and asked, "What does it signify?"

Amlaruil gazed into the night for a long time, then lifted up her face, smiling at the stars.

"I am not certain, old friend, but I think a mighty blow has been struck against our enemies. Sunrise will find new things in Faerun."

The damaged Vyshaanti battle-platform hovered high over the battlefield of the Lonely Moor, its deck canted slightly to one side. Sarya didn't know if the device could be repaired or not, but she was unwilling to abandon it, even with its crumpled and scorched armor plates. But sooner or later the platform would certainly draw another attack from the elf spellcasters below, and it was only a tool, after all. Broken tools were to be discarded, and that was that.

The savage warriors who had fought and died as the fodder for her army were rapidly reaching the status of broken tools as well. Untold numbers of orcs, ogres, and such had fallen in the futile attempt to overwhelm the deadly steel core of Evermeet's army. They'd done well enough while the elves were beset by hundreds of demons and flanked by her fey'ri, but the demons she'd seeded among their ragged ranks had served to drive the tribal warriors onward with suitable zeal. With the demons gone, the orcs and their kin didn't seem so eager to try their chances against elven arrows and battle magic.

"The battle is lost, my lady," Mardeiym Reithel said. He bowed and continued, "We must withdraw the fey'ri before our losses grow any worse."

"I know," Sarya snarled.

She was tempted to punish the fey'ri for his temerity, but she held her hand. Mardeiym was competent and respectful, and it was certainly not his fault that he'd lost a quarter of the army-the fiercest and most powerful quarter, really-in one terrible moment. She had to get back to Myth Glaurach right away to see what had happened to the mythal stone. Had it finally decayed past the point of usefulness? Or had one of her underlings attempted something rash? Was Nurthel capable of such a brazen act of defiance?

"Signal the legion to disengage at once," she commanded. "Leave the orcs and the rest to the mercy of the elves. They shall serve to cover our retreat."

Mardeiym called to the messenger fey'ri who waited on his orders. "Sound the retreat!" he said. "We'll retire by air."

The messengers sounded their brazen trumpets, and from the melee of flashing swords and crackling spells below, the fey'ri began to rise, taking to the air. Better than a thousand of Sarya's demonblooded warriors had started the battle at sunset, but she guessed that a third of her fey'ri would not return to the halls of Myth Glaurach. Demons could be summoned again. orc tribes could be enticed with promises of loot and easy victory. But her fey'ri were indispensable.

"What will we do now, my lady?" Mardeiym asked quietly.

Sarya clenched her fists on the iron rail of the platform until the strength in her fingers left marks in the armor plate.

"Preserve the fey'ri," she answered. "Fall back and regroup to fight another day. You will gather the fey'ri and lead them back to our city at your best speed, but do not abandon the wounded if you can help it."

"Where will you be, my lady?"

"I must return to Myth Glaurach immediately to see what has happened there. Now go."

"Yes, Lady Sarya," the fey'ri warmaster replied.

He struck his fist to his breastplate in salute, and took to the air to join the fey'ri flying away from the battle.

Sarya spared the elf soldiers beneath her one hateful hiss, then she teleported herself away from the battle-platform. It was rash of her, but she chose to send herself directly to the mythal stone in its deep well of living rock. She needed to know what had happened to the spells with which she had anchored her demons to the physical world.

She appeared in a gout of sudden flame, her spell shields crackling into life, her staff held in guard as she readied herself to strike. But no enemies awaited her.

"What is this?" she snarled into the cold air.

There was no reply.

Angrily, she stalked over to the great rosy stone and set her hand on it, commanding it to reveal what had been done to it. But the mythal refused to answer. It did not recognize her presence at all.

"Who did this?" she screamed aloud. "Who did this?"

Ah, Sarya, I see that you have returned. You may be pleased to learn that I can answer that question, Malkizid's beautiful voice spoke from the mythal stone, melodious and perfect.

"Malkizid! What has happened to the mythal?"

I regret to inform you that a sun elf wizard with some skill in these matters appeared in this chamber a short time ago, and performed some alterations to your mythal stone. I presume from the outrage in your voice that he has sealed the mythal from any further contact on your part.

"Why did you not stop him?" Sarya raged.

I had no power to do so. I can communicate through this device, but I can exercise none of my powers at your end. Malkizid allowed himself a small laugh then added, I warned the fellow that you would be terribly angry.

"This is no laughing matter," the daemonfey queen snarled. "The loss of this mythal just now wrecked my army on the Lonely Moor. I had the palebloods trapped between my demons and my fey'ri, and my demons vanished all at once. My victory was stolen from me, damn you!" She whirled away in anger, stalking the floor of the mythal chamber, eyes aflame with emerald fire. "This is intolerable. I must resummon those demons and yugoloths at once."

Alas, this mythal will no longer serve you for that purpose. The sun elf who came here made certain of that. Malkizid's golden voice paused then added, But… there are other mythals you might turn to your purposes.

The daemonfey queen stopped in mid-step and snapped her gaze to the rose-hued boulder, even though she knew that Malkizid was not really there.

"Myth Drannor," she said

I have no ability to manipulate the mythal of Corman-thor, for I am not an elf. However, with your elf's blood and my knowledge of mythalcraft, we could accomplish far more in Myth Drannor than you could in Myth Glaurach. Is it really necessary to begin your reign by reclaiming Siluvanede? Or are you willing to found your dynasty here instead?

Sarya folded her wings close behind her back, and narrowed her eyes.

"Before my family came to Siluvanede, we sought the throne of Arcorar. I am not without a claim to Corman-thyr's throne." She considered the offer, examining the possibilities, and said, "Your suggestion interests me. I gain the kingdom denied my House for six thousand years, but what do you gain, Malkizid?"

The light tones of the golden voice vanished for an instant.

Freedom, Malkizid answered. And the dream of a new Aryvandaar ordering the world as it should have long ago. Our paths run together for quite a long time, Sarya Dlardrageth.

The daemonfey queen weighed Malkizid's words, and assented with a predatory smile.

"Very well. I will bring my fey'ri to Myth Drannor, and we will make ready an army even greater and more terrible than the one I just raised."

I await your arrival, then.

Sarya nodded. She did not entirely trust Malkizid, but she couldn't see what he might gain from leading her astray, and what he said made sense to her. Already she was considering the questions of how to carry away the treasures and armaments she had stored beneath Myth Glaurach. There was much to do, and not much time. She started to turn away, but then one more thought struck her.

"One last thing, Malkizid," she rasped. "Tell me-who ruined this mythal for me, and where can I find him?"