'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
