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
