Powerful magic wards defended the hidden depths of her buried citadel, defenses that not even the fey'ri were permitted to pass. With long familiarity she made the signs and spoke the passwords, finally spiraling down through a great vertical shaft to a mighty chamber far below.
A great boulder of pale pink stone lay at the bottom of the shaft, hundreds of feet below the Grand Mage's Hall above. A beard of green moss clung to the rock, staining its glossy surface. To anyone with arcane sight the stone virtually pulsed with power. It was an artifact of pure magic, the keystone of the great mythal of magic that had once shielded Myth Glaurach, and while the city above had long since fallen into ruin, the mighty enchantments laid into the stone over decades of work still endured. Once the stone had rested in the grand mage's garden, near the center of the city above, but Sarya guessed that during Myth Glaurach's final days it had been moved to the buried pit in order to protect it from the attackers, in hopes that someday the folk of Eaerlann might return and wake its slumbering power to rebuild their realm. That had never happened; she had found it instead.
"Welcome, Sarya." A deep, melodious voice filled the chamber, speaking from the air itself. "How goes your war against Evereska?"
"Our first attack has been repulsed," Sarya said. She suspected that the unseen speaker knew perfectly well how matters stood. "Evermeet reinforced the city with much greater strength than I expected. I need more demons and yugoloths to destroy this foe. Many more."
"You have summoned a great number in the last few days."
"I have no other choice. I need soldiers-powerful soldiers."
"You will have to sustain them in your world with the mythal's power, as before."
"That takes time," Sarya growled. "I need a great army of mighty fiends, enough to scour all this land of my ancient enemies. Is there nothing more you can do to help me?"
"You could empty the nether planes to fill your ranks, Sarya, if you could reweave this mythal in the proper way. Without the proper high magic rites you cannot alter the basic purposes for which the mythal was raised over Myth Glaurach."
"I know," Sarya snapped. "You have told me many times, Malkizid. Unfortunately, only one of my line ever mastered high magic, and his knowledge is not available to me-though I may soon be able to remedy that shortcoming."
"You have found Saelethil's arcana?" the voice said, surprised.
"Not yet, though I am closer than I have ever been. Nurthel is seeking the third of Ithraides's telkiira even as we speak." Sarya caressed the mythal stone, feeling its magic stir beneath her fingertips, and continued, "Deciphering the telkiira may be the work of tendays or months, and my army requires reinforcement now."
"I eagerly anticipate your success."
"So do I."
Sarya bared her teeth in a fierce smile. Then she drew a deep breath, gathering her strength for the ordeal ahead. She had prepared her spells for the day with that task in mind, and so dozens of powerful conjurations filled her mind, a jumble of arcane symbols and words of binding that she could scarcely hold. By herself, she could call up another dozen or fifteen demons with her spells, and that would be useful, of course, but by drawing on the power of the mythal she would be able to re-use her spells over and over, and fix the demons she summoned to her plane by the power of the ancient device. All it took was time and her own personal attention. She raised her hands and called the first of the demons.
The fey'ri stripped Araevin and his companions of their weapons and armor, binding them securely with shackles of enchanted steel. Then the captain of the fey'ri, the one-eyed sorcerer in the armor of golden scales, drew a scroll from a case at his belt and read out a spell quickly and surely, the arcane words falling from his tongue with a sibilant hiss. In the cold damp of Grimlight's lair, a shining gold hoop appeared on the wet stone floor.
Exactly like the one we saw them use in Tower Reilloch, Araevin realized.
He was not given much time to wonder about the destination. The fey'ri soldiers dragged him to his feet and marched him to the circle, their taloned hands firmly gripping his arms.
A faint golden aura rose around Araevin and his escorts, and his stomach dropped away from him in the disconcerting way it often did during teleportation. Then he was somewhere else, a great, dark hall with a floor of smooth black marble and walls of glittering rock. Globes of crimson mage-light drifted aimlessly high overhead, illuminating a sheer rift at one end of the room, from which a breath of stale, cold air sighed.
"Where are we?" Araevin asked. "Who are you, and what do you want with us?"
The sorcerer-captain studied him with his single green eye, and deliberately stepped forward and slapped Araevin with all his might. The blow snapped Araevin's head back and set bright white stars reeling in his vision. His knees buckled and he would have fallen, but the fey'ri swordsmen beside him held him upright.
"You will address me with respect," the sorcerer stated. "I am Lord Nurthel Floshin. You need know nothing else for now."
Araevin sensed magic at work as the teleportation hoop functioned again, and Ilsevele was dragged through by more of the fey'ri. He managed to catch her eye and he shook his head subtly, encouraging her to remain silent. In a few moments the rest of their captors had joined them, the last demons dragging the coin-filled chests the behir had hoarded. Araevin took the opportunity to study the room as best he could. It was deep underground, that much was clear. The very air seemed to glimmer with a strange quality-a powerful, pervasive magic, harnessed to the place.
We're inside a mythal of some kind, he realized. Where do mythals still stand?
Araevin's guards stirred, and he was jerked around to face a hallway behind him. Light footfalls sounded beyond the archway, and a daemonfey woman appeared.
Short and girlish in appearance, she was strikingly beautiful in spite of her clearly demonic heritage-her scarlet skin, slender tail, and long, leathery wings gave that much away. She wore black robes with a scalloped, stiff cut, finished with elaborate gold embroidery. Her eyes glowed with green malice as she circled Araevin and his comrades, studying them.
"I am weary, Nurthel," she said. "Is this who I think it is?"
"Yes, my queen. I brought them directly to you," the fey'ri captain said.
"Kneel, paleblood dog!" growled one of Araevin's guards. The elf mage was shoved to his knees, as were his companions. "Grovel before your queen!"
"Go to hell," Maresa snapped, but she was quickly hammered to the ground by three or four cruel kicks and blows.
"Well done, Nurthel," the woman said. She gazed at each of them before fixing her emerald eyes on Araevin. "I am Sarya Dlardrageth, and you will be my guests for a short time. The comforts of your visit are largely up to you. Now, who are you?"
Araevin briefly considered a sullen silence, but given the way Maresa had been mishandled, it seemed likely that the daemonfey would eventually compel him to speak. He decided to save his resistance for something that mattered.
"Araevin Teshurr," he said, his jaw still aching from Nurthel's open-handed slap.
"And your companions?"
"So you are the Dlardrageths," Araevin said. "You have survived all the long centuries since Siluvanede's fall… and no one knew. Where are we?"
Sarya snorted softly and said, "You forget who is asking the questions." She glanced at Nurthel. "Has he opened the third stone?"