Eventually they all decided that it didn’t matter very much, since Filsaelene’s divinations revealed that the daemonfey had not emerged from the portal network there. Instead, their adversaries had fled through the second of the two portals in the chamber below. They rested for the night in the forest above the mausoleum, and returned to the vaulted chamber beneath the empty tomb.
Araevin cast his spells of portal sensing again, and studied the doorway they had passed by before. As he suspected, it was another keyed portal, requiring nothing more than a simple phrase in Elvish. However, the magic guarding it was intermittent. Once opened, the portal would not work again for hours.
“All right, I am opening the portal,” he told the others. “The portal will remain open for a short time, just a few moments likely, and it won’t open again for hours. You must follow me quickly.”
He spoke the pass phrase, and watched the old lichen-covered lintel glow brightly. He reached out and tapped the blank stone of the door, and felt the familiar dizzying sense of moving without moving. All went dark for an instant, and Araevin found himself looking on a small forest glade. One side of the glade ended in a stone wall, in which the portal’s archway stood. The morning was young there as well, the sky pale gray and streaked with high, rose-colored clouds.
“Neither east nor west this time,” Araevin observed.
He stepped away from the doorway, and studied the dark forest looming around him. The broken fingers of slender stone towers rose a short distance away, glimmering softly in the coming dawn over the treetops.
Behind him, Starbrow emerged from the portal, followed by the others in short order. The moon elf warrior halted in surprise, a look of consternation on his face.
“I know this place!” he said. “We’re near the Burial Glen, only half a mile or so from Myth Drannor.”
“Myth Drannor! Are you certain?” Ilsevele said. She quickly drew an arrow and laid it across her bow, scanning the vicinity for any enemies.
“Trust me,” Starbrow said. “I know this place.”
“Aren’t the ruins supposed to be overrun by devils and dragons, monsters and ghosts of the worst kind?” Maresa asked, obviously uneasy.
“So it is said,” Ilsevele replied.
“Myth Drannor… of course,” Araevin said.
Where else would the daemonfey go? Saelethil Dlardrageth and the rest of his accursed House had arisen in the ancient realm of Arcorar, which had become Myth Drannor. He’d already seen that Sarya knew how to use mythals to anchor demons to Faerun and compel their service-and there was a mythal here, one even more powerful than the mythal that had stood over Myth Glaurach. And mythals often served to absolutely block scrying, which would explain why no one had been able to divine the whereabouts of Sarya’s defeated army.
“Be careful,” he told the others. “I think there is a very good chance we have found Sarya’s hiding place.”
“So what now?” Ilsevele asked. “Make certain that they’re here, or return and report what we’ve found so far?”
“Press on,” Araevin said at once. “If nothing else, I need to get a look at the mythal spells and see if Sarya is manipulating this mythal as she did the other one.”
“The mythal stone is in the heart of Castle Cormanthor,” Starbrow said. “I can’t imagine how we can reach it, if the whole fey’ri army is here.”
Araevin looked at Starbrow. “You know Myth Drannor well. Mythal stones are usually hidden with care.”
“I’ve spent some time here.” Starbrow shrugged and looked away, searching the trees for danger, Keryvian’s hilt in his hand.
“I don’t need to see the stone itself, at least not right this moment. I just need to be within the bounds of the mythal’s influence.”
“That’s easier, then,” the moon elf said. “We need only walk a couple of hundred yards in that direction-” he pointed toward where the old spires could still be seen over the trees-“and we’ll be within the mythal.”
“We might be walking into the middle of Sarya’s legion,” Maresa said. “Anything could be in there. Hells, even 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.