Sarya has modified the mythal! he realized.
"I didn't think that was possible," he breathed.
Of course it's possible, Saelethil's memory told him. If none of the mythal-raisers contest your efforts, you can modify a standing mythal. It is strenuous and requires a little lore, but it can be done.
Araevin examined the mythal-weave again. There he saw a corrupted thread that would cause spells of magical force to fail if cast within the mythal's field. Another fraying weave allowed a knowledgeable caster to control the temperature within the mythal's bounds. A more intact strand would permit him to use the mythal's powers to enhance his own spells, making them swifter and more powerful.
"That's a useful trick," he noted.
More wards blocked scrying by those who did not know the proper key.
Araevin turned his attention to the founding ward, the strongest and most pervasive of all the magic streams, and there he found the lethargic golden trunk of the original ward warped by a strong new stream of burnished red-gold, like a strangling vine parasitizing an old tree. Sarya had twisted the first and primary warding the mythal offered. Araevin frowned and studied it more closely. In ancient times, he could see that the ward had been designed to absolutely bar the entrance of creatures who had knowingly consumed elf- or man-flesh. In the days when orcs, trolls, and demons besieged the North, it would have been a formidable bulwark against their armies. But Sarya had perverted that ward, and instead was using it to anchor something else in place. Hundreds of fine red filaments frayed out from the great ward, disappearing into the ether.
"Demons," he whispered. "That is how the Dlardrageths are summoning so many demons. They're using the mythal to do it."
Despite the fearsomeness of Araevin's newfound lore, he still felt sick. To see an ancient and noble work such as the mythal enslaved to a purpose its builders would have reviled simply turned his stomach.
He might be able to do something about that. But first he had to locate Ilsevele and Maresa.
Araevin closed his eyes and murmured the words of a powerful and unusual divination. In the air above his head, a dozen faint, ghostly orbs appeared. Each was a semitangible spell construct the size of a small apple, with a single black pupil in its center. They were not invisible, but they were small and translucent, hard to see unless someone happened to look right at one.
"Spread out and search this place," he whispered to them. "Return and report if you find Ilsevele or Maresa, or in ten minutes if you don't."
At once the orbs wheeled and arrowed off in all directions, speeding through the shadowed stronghold and quickly vanishing from Araevin's sight. While the mythal prevented scrying divinations, if he was right in his assessment of the mythal's capabilities, it would not interfere with that particular spell. He folded his arms and waited, straining to detect the least sound that might indicate that his spying orbs had been seen or his own presence detected.
The moments crawled by as he waited motionless in the dimly lit hall. Then the first of his orbs returned, speeding to him. He caught the tiny thing in his hand and focused his attention on it.
"Report," he said.
Araevin's mind filled with the image of a rapid flight through one of the passages exiting the room, up a set of stairs, down one corridor to a dead end, then to the other end of the corridor where a pair of fey'ri swordsmen stood guard over a short hall filled with cell doors. He seemed to peer into the cells one by one, spotting Ilsevele and Maresa almost at once. They had been stripped of their weapons and armor, and seemed a little worse for the wear, but both were alive and awake. The view spun away again as the orb returned. Fortunately, it seemed that the jailors hadn't noticed its passage.
The orb dissipated in his hand, its task complete. Araevin looked up at the hallway it had followed. His companions were not far off, but he decided to wait a few minutes and see what else he might learn from his spying spell.
One by one his orbs returned, and he examined the findings of each. By the time he was finished, Araevin had a good sense of the layout of the place. The rift led up to a ruined city above, and from it, like the spokes of a buried wheel, radiated passages and halls. Forges, armories, storerooms, barracks… the place was a small fortress, hidden beneath the forgotten ruins above. He glimpsed a dozen or so fey'ri in various places, plus a handful of demons and yugoloths, most of whom seemed to be assigned to guard duties. Otherwise, the stronghold was almost vacant, and the majority of its halls and corridors were empty and silent. Sarya's army was not at home.
The final orb to report held a surprise he had not expected: Below him, near the bottom of the shaft, he glimpsed a large boulder of pale pinkish stone, half-covered with green moss.
The mythal stone! he realized.
Araevin filed away the glimpses shown by his orbs, and set out down the hallway leading to the daemonfey dungeon.
Tor Evermeet!" Seiveril cried.
With Fflar at his side and the Knights of the Golden Star at his back, he hurled himself headlong into the foul tide of demons who sought to encircle the crusade. There was nothing to gain by avoiding the fighting anymore. No orders he might give could possibly affect the outcome, as the battle of maneuver was clearly done with. All that remained was to slay or be slain.
The Golden Star raised a high, clear war cry that echoed across the twilit moorlands. Chancing falls and broken legs, they spurred their elven coursers toward the wave of demons, who gladly leaped forward to meet them. Hellborn fangs, claws, and sorcery met elven steel magic in a tremendous collision that shook the battlefield.
Seiveril's war-horse reared and plunged, beset on both flanks by the hulking, chitinous forms of mezzoloths. One jabbed its iron trident at Seiveril while the other lunged low, seeking to gut his horse. But the elflord managed to wrench his mount's reins aside and dance the horse away from the second fiend while parrying the strike of the first with his holy mace. He turned toward the first mezzoloth and rode close up on it, standing in his stirrups to smash down at its head and shoulders with all his strength. Chitin split and ichor flew, and the monster went down beneath the stamping silver-shod hooves of his mount.
Seiveril wheeled to parry the attack he expected from the second mezzoloth, but that one was gone, swept away by the tide of battle. In its place a grossly obese hezrou battled with its back to him, battering at one of Gaerth's knights with its long, clawed arms. He rode three steps closer and slammed the spiked mace head between the toadlike demon's shoulder blades. The thing howled abominably, but it did not die-demons were difficult to kill, at best. Instead it spun around and struck him a backhand blow with its ogrelike fist that knocked the elflord clean out of his saddle.
Seiveril grunted as he hit the ground, but there at least the moorland was a blessing-he landed on a tuft of stiff grass that helped to break his fall. The elflord glanced up just in time to find demons scrabbling toward him from all sides, fangs dripping with venom, eyes aglow with the power of the hells.
From his knees he spoke a single word of power, a holy word of Corellon Larethian so mighty that no evil creature could endure its utterance. Several of the demons nearby disappeared with wails of agony, instantly banished back to their infernal domain by the power of the word. Others reeled away stunned, black blood trickling from their ears, smoke rising from their foul bodies.
"That's better," Seiveril managed, and found his feet again.