“I’ve seen his work with that sword of his,” Maresa observed to Filsaelene. The genasi set her hands on her hips, her crimson leather armor gleaming darkly. “I’m not going to tell him we don’t need him.”
“Very well,” Araevin answered. “Let’s have a look at these portals you found. It may be a short trip if I can’t open them.”
Starbrow laughed out loud, then he led the small company into the streets of Myth Glaurach. A short walk brought them to the onetime palace of the city’s rulers. It was an impressive ruin, with great gaping arches and broken towers reaching to the gray skies.
“The grand mage’s palace,” Starbrow said. “The daemonfey used it as their stronghold.”
They climbed up the shattered steps to the open foyer, passed through into a courtyard within the overgrown walls, and there found a stone stairway deep in the palace, descending into the darkness below. Araevin frowned, and steeled himself. He knew all too well the vaults and passages beneath the palace, as did his companions.
Starbrow’s soldiers had illuminated the dark passageway with small lanterns, and they followed the string of lanternlit hallways and stairs as they descended deeper and deeper into the cold rock of the hillside. They passed several contingents of guards, vigilant elves who stood watch in case some undetected evil emerged from a hidden depth of Sarya’s dungeons.
“Have you had any trouble down here?” Araevin asked.
“We’ve found a couple of magical traps-spell glyphs, symbols, things like that,” Starbrow replied. “But we haven’t found any fey’ri assassins lurking in the cellars, or demongates to the Abyss, or dragon lairs, or anything truly dangerous. I think Sarya simply didn’t have the time to cover her tracks as well as she might have liked.”
The moon elf turned aside into a long, narrow gallery that Araevin recognized from his cursory exploration of the place a few tendays ago. Statues of grim-looking gargoyles crouched near the ceiling, leering down at them. The gallery ended in a blank stone wall, a single featureless block contained within a stone lintel carved in the shape of a winding vine climbing a trellis.
“Here it is,” Starbrow said.
“That’s not daemonfey work,” Araevin said at once. He pointed at the decorative stonework. “They have no use for carvings like that.”
Starbrow looked sharply at him. “You mean this is a dead end?”
“No, I didn’t say that. There’s no reason that Sarya and her vultures couldn’t have used a portal like this.”
Araevin studied it, searching for any markings or lettering to read.
“Can you open it?” Filsaelene asked.
“Possibly,” Araevin replied. “Let me try a spell first.”
He whispered the words of a simple detection spell, and carefully examined the flickering auras that glimmered around the ancient doorway.
“It has the right sort of magic,” he decided. “And it’s certainly strong and well-woven enough to have lasted for quite a long time.”
He spoke another spell, one that would divine many of the secrets of the portal. In his eyes the magical Weave ghosted into existence, bright and many-colored, each strand hinting at work done well and carefully long ago.
“It’s a keyed portal,” he said.
“Which means?” Starbrow asked.
“It won’t open unless we take the right action or present the right device-a token of some kind, a password, some specific thing that would keep just anybody from opening the doorway.”
Araevin examined the blank gateway for a few minutes longer, and he began to chant the words of a longer and more difficult spell, seeking to wrest from the portal itself the knowledge of what key would activate it.
He finished the spell, and in his mind’s eye he caught a glimpse of a small white flower, a tiny bell only the size of a thumbnail, really.
“That makes sense,” Araevin said with a soft laugh. “What? Have you figured it out already?” Starbrow said.
“It’s only a matter of knowing the right spells. They’re somewhat rare, and I suppose not all that many wizards have studied them.” Araevin straightened, and reached out to tap the carving of the vine surrounding the doorway. “This vine-it is rellana, isn’t it?”
Starbrow and the others exchanged blank looks, but Ilsevele nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it is.”
“That’s all we need. Each of us must carry a petal of a rellana blossom and speak a short password- nesyie alleisendilie — and the portal will activate.”
“I’ll send for some,” Starbrow said at once. He quickly trotted out of sight and called out to the nearby guards. In a few minutes, he returned with a handful of tiny white blossoms. “Here you go,” he said. “What would they do if they needed to use the portal and these weren’t in bloom?”
“The builders probably kept a small jar of old petals somewhere near this place,” Araevin said. He helped himself to a small petal, and held it pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Now, how do we want to do this? It might be best if I went ahead alone, in case there’s some trap I didn’t expect-”
“Nesyie alleisendilie!”
Maresa said. She touched the blank stone of the archway, and disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but a small white petal drifting down to the floor.
“Maresa!” Ilsevele snapped, but the genasi was nowhere in sight. The noblewoman snarled. “Now what do we do?”
“She doesn’t like to waste time, does she?” Starbrow observed. “Well, let’s hope that Araevin can get us out of wherever we wind up.”
He plucked a single petal out of the handful he held, dropped the rest into Araevin’s hand, and followed Maresa into the portal. With a sigh, Ilsevele snatched up a petal and hurried after him, followed by Filsaelene a moment later.
Araevin took a moment to scoop up the whole handful of rellana flowers, just in case there were multiple portals on the far side that made use of the same key. Then he followed his comrades into the unknown.
Sarya Dlardrageth studied the founding-stone of Myth Drannor’s mythal, dreaming of the things she could do with its power. Unlike the stone in Myth Glaurach, which was a massive natural boulder, Myth Drannor’s was a well-shaped obelisk of deep rose-colored stone on a plinth of granite. Golden light seemed to glimmer in the translucent stone, hinting at power waiting to be harnessed.
The daemonfey queen carefully swept the rest of the chamber with the most acute detection spells she could manage, making absolutely sure that she knew precisely what was or wasn’t enclosed in the mythal chamber. It was a relatively large and airy room, a spacious vault with a high, graceful arch to the ceiling. By some ancient artifice six bright columns of sunlight shone down into the room, relayed through Castle Cormanthor’s upper floors by hidden shafts. The floor was a complex design of intersecting circles rendered in several different varieties of marble, covered in a thick coat of dust from centuries of disuse.
Satisfied that no scryings or magical traps awaited her, Sarya returned her attention to the mythal stone. “I am ready,” she announced.
“Excellent,” replied someone from within the mythal’s living fountain of magic. Melodious, even beautiful, the voice was masculine and perfect. “Open your gate, then, I will join you there.”
Sarya raised her hands and began to declaim the words of a very powerful spell, one of the most dangerous she knew, a spell designed to breach the barriers between the planes and create a magical bridge into another realm of existence. The mythal thrummed in response, the intangible pulse of the old device taking on a new and different note. Sarya ignored the mythal stone’s change and pressed on, finishing her gate spell with skill and confidence.
“The gate is open!” she cried. “Malkizid, come forth!”
Before Sarya a great ring or hoop of golden magic coalesced from the air. Through it she glimpsed the realm of Malkizid, an infernal wasteland of parched desert, windswept rifts, and black, angry skies torn by crimson lightning. Then, through the gate, the archdevil Malkizid appeared. With one smooth step he crossed from his infernal plane into the mythal chamber.