if she isn’t here, I’ve heard enough stories about Myth Drannor to think twice about setting foot in that place.”
“I’ll conceal us, at least for a short time,” Araevin promised.
He drew out a tiny pinch of spirit gum from his bandolier of spell components, and plucked out one of his eyelashes, wincing. Pressing the lash into the gum, he carefully spoke the words of a spell. The forest around them seemed to grow dimmer, more distant.
“Araevin, what did you do?” Filsaelene asked.
“A spell of invisibility. It covers all of us, but you must remain close to me. If we run into enemies, do not strike unless you’re sure it can’t be helped, because you’ll break the spell if you do.” He looked over to Starbrow. “Lead the way, since you know where we’re going.”
Starbrow nodded grimly and took the lead. They followed an old, winding path that led from the portal glen toward the city, taking pains to move quietly and avoid talking. Many things could pierce a spell of invisibility, but if they were quiet and careful, they might be able to avoid trouble of that sort.
They reached the outskirts of the city, and took cover behind a low stone wall. Araevin sensed the moment they entered the mythal. His skin tingled with the power of the ancient magic.
“Let’s stop here. I have a couple of spells to cast, now that we’re inside the mythal. Keep watch for me.”
Ilsevele crouched beside him, an arrow on the string of her bow. Starbrow stood behind a tall pile of stones, sword in hand, watching the ruins with his face set in an unreadable expression. Maresa and Filsaelene guarded the other side.
Satisfied that they were ready, Araevin first cast one of his divinations. Myth Drannor’s magical aura made scrying impossible, but he hoped that a different sort of divination might work. He spoke the words of the spell that conjured up unseen drifting eyes, hovering above his head like a halo.
“Spread out and search for the daemonfey,” he instructed them. “Return when you sight any.”
The intangible sensors whirred away out of sight, each dodging and darting its way into the ruins and the forests around him.
He waited patiently for several minutes, as his spell-creations went about their searches. Then they began to return, one by one. Araevin caught each in his hand as it came back, closing his eyes to see played out in his mind’s eye the things the magical eyes had seen. He glimpsed buildings with broken windows, fallen-in roofs, and piles of masonry inside; streets overgrown with vines and wild trees; proud old manors and schools still surprisingly intact, though their windows were dark and empty. And he also found the daemonfey-glimpses of fey’ri companies bivouacked in whichever buildings were best preserved. The demonspawn were hard at work in repairing their weapons and armor, forging new weapons, drilling with spell and blade, or simply patrolling the ruins, fluttering from building to building like oversized bats.
“Well?” Maresa asked.
“Yes, they’re here,” Araevin said. “This is the fey’ri army, I’m certain of it.”
“We have to leave, then,” Starbrow said. “I have to get word of this back to Gaerth and Seiveril.”
Araevin nodded. “In a moment,” he said. “There is one more thing I want to see here.” The others shifted nervously, watching the ruins for any sign of approaching enemies, but Araevin moved his hands in arcane passes and murmured the words of another spell, the spell of mythal-sight that Saelethil had taught him.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he perceived Myth Drannor’s ancient and mighty mythal as a golden vault filling the sky, a huge dome of drifting magic threads that slowly orbited the whole city. The beauty and power of the thing astonished him. Araevin trained his vision closer in, studying carefully to see what the mythal’s effects were. He glimpsed protections against scrying-well, he knew about those already, didn’t he? — and wards to suppress spells of compulsion and domination. There seemed to be no modifications to the drifting strands of magic.
Sarya hasn’t figured out how to manipulate this mythal yet, he decided. Maybe it takes her a while to determine how to attune herself.
He allowed himself a confident smile, and spoke the words of a spell that would allow him to gain access to the mythal so that he could raise defenses against Sarya. But even as he spoke the last syllable and reached out to grasp at the magical strands he saw around him, he realized that he had made a mistake.
From the drifting golden strand hovering in arm’s reach, a shimmering red-gold thread suddenly emerged, appearing from nowhere. Araevin yelped and stumbled back, but not before the new strand hummed angrily. A scarlet veil descended over him, dancing across his body in a thousand motes of painful pinpricks, jabbing and sharp. With each pinprick, a spell vanished from his mind, draining away at a horrendous rate.
“Araevin!” Ilsevele cried.
She sprang to her feet and backed away as he jerked and flailed in his crimson cocoon of light motes.
The great golden dome of Myth Drannor’s mythal wavered and faded from Araevin’s view. He desperately tried to speak a counterspell, but before he had even said the third word of the enchantment, the spell was sucked out of his mind in mid-casting. He tried to quickly think of another, but then there was no more time-every spell he held prepared in his mind was gone, drained away.
I am powerless, he realized. Sarya set a trap for me!
“Araevin! What’s wrong? What has happened?” Ilsevele asked. “Are you hurt?”
“Not physically,” he managed. He steadied himself against the wall. “But I’ve been drained of magic. I have no spells. We have to flee, before the daemonfey come for me.”
Starbrow drew back from his post, and glanced at Araevin.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Araevin answered.
He hugged himself, feeling a strange ache in the center of his body, as if something had been torn out of him. He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d been injured, but he prayed to Corellon that it wasn’t permanent. He couldn’t imagine being powerless for the rest of his days.
He forced himself to look up at Starbrow and say, “Yes, I can walk. But I think we ought to run.”
CHAPTER SIX
21 Mirtul, the Year of Lightning Storms
“Lord Seiveril Miritar, Your Highness,” the major domo announced, ringing her ceremonial staff once on the stone floor.
Seiveril inclined his head to acknowledge the courtesy, and strode into the Dome of Stars amid the golden glow of the fading daylight. The dark marble of the floor caught the pale rose sky and mirrored its serried colors, so that the council table drifted in the darkness between gold-glowing floor and brilliant sky, a white ship adrift in the shadows between the two. Seiveril almost hesitated to set foot on the floor before him, as if he might disturb the sky’s reflection with a careless step, but he continued without a pause and approached the high table where he had sat in council for so many years.
Amlaruil greeted him with a cool smile. The queen wore a silver gown, and her face shone like moonlight in the shadows.
“Welcome, Lord Miritar,” she said. “We did not expect you this evening; what brings you before us?”
“I am afraid something has come up, my queen,” Seiveril replied. He halted two paces before the outswept arms of the council and bowed to Amlaruil. “I must conclude my business here in Evermeet and return to Faerun immediately.”
Amlaruil met his eyes, and her brow creased. “What news from Faerun, my friend?” she asked.
“I have received a sending from Lord Vesilde Gaerth, Your Highness. He tells me that a hidden portal network has been found under Myth Glaurach, portals through which Sarya Dlardrageth’s army may have made their escape.”
“Portals?” said Keryth Blackhelm. The stern-faced marshal frowned. “Why, the daemonfey might be anywhere by now!”
“The portals are being searched even as we speak. Rest assured I will not give up until we have destroyed the daemonfey root and branch,” said Seiveril.
