"Too late for that now," Maresa said. She climbed to her feet and brushed off her scarlet tunic. She met Araevin's eyes, and the determination in her face softened just a bit. "Not that I'm ungrateful, of course. How in the world did you manage this? The last I saw you, you were enslaved by Sarya's enchantments."
"I will tell you both the whole story later. Suffice it to say that I am no longer under her control." Araevin looked up and down the hall. "Here, Maresa, you take this wand. The command word is nemehl. It fires a bolt of disrupting power, so make sure you do not point it at anyone you are fond of."
"Don't worry about that," said Maresa. She took the wand, baring her teeth in a predatory smile.
"Araevin, there's another prisoner here, down at the end of the hall," Ilsevele said. "I heard her sobbing yesterday. We must take her with us, if we can."
Araevin and his companions quickly checked the other cells, finding them all empty except for one. A small sun elf woman, hardly more than a girl really, lay curled on the floor, so weary and heartbroken that she had actually passed from Reverie into actual sleep, something that elves did only when gravely ill or wounded. They unlocked the door and moved in to rouse the girl.
"Hello? Are you well enough to walk?" Ilsevele asked, kneeling by the elf lass.
The girl roused herself, and looked up at the three of them with astonishment. She was dressed in the sturdy pants and tunic of a traveler, and Araevin noticed that she wore the padded arming coat of a suit of heavy armor that had obviously been taken from her. She seemed a little on the slight side to be a warrior.
A cleric? he wondered.
"Who are you?" she managed.
"I am Ilsevele Miritar. Until a few moments ago, I was a captive like you. This is Maresa Rost, and this is Araevin Teshurr, our rescuer."
"I am Filsaelene Merwyst. Can you really get me out of here?"
"We will try," Ilsevele promised. "How long have you been here, Filsaelene? How did the daemonfey capture you?"
The girl sat up, her arms wrapped around her torso, and said, "About two months, I think. I was traveling with a company of adventurers, heading for the old ruins of Elvenport. The fey'ri ambushed us near the ruins of
Hellgate Keep. They… they killed my companions, but they told me that they spare sun elves." She shivered, and added dully, "They said I would make good breeding stock."
"Aillesel Seldarie", Ilsevele breathed. "Did they-?"
"No, not yet," Filsaelene said. "They seem to have almost forgotten me. I think they are engaged in some dark enterprise or another, something that has absorbed their attention for several tendays now. I heard many more fey'ri here for a time before most of them left."
"How did the fey'ri bring you here?" said Araevin.
"I was marched here. It's only thirty miles or so from Hellgate Keep."
"Do you know where this place is?" Araevin asked.
Despite his success in teleporting to the daemonfey hall, he had no idea where it stood.
"Beneath the ruins of Myth Glaurach. We're in the northern end of the Delimbiyr Vale, in the foothills of the Nether Mountains. You teleported here, then?"
"Yes," Araevin answered. "And that is how I intend to leave."
Araevin looked at Ilsevele and Maresa. All he wanted was to take them out of danger at once, but if he did so, Sarya would soon discover their escape. For that matter, she would not be long in discovering Nurthel's failure. When she did, she would likely reexamine the defenses she had woven over Myth Glaurach's mythal, and she might have skill enough to ensure that Araevin would not be able to easily return. He had an opportunity that he might not have later, an opportunity important enough to hazard his life, as well as the lives of his companions.
"We should get moving," he said. "There is something I want to do before we leave."
"What is that?" Ilsevele asked.
"This place is guarded by a mythal stone that the daemonfey have turned to their own purposes. I think I can do something about it. Without the mythal's defenses, there will be nothing to obscure our scrying spells or deflect our attacks against this place. I suspect that the daemonfey would find its loss hard to bear, though it means delaying our departure for a short time."
"You can damage mythals?" Ilsevele asked in surprise. "I didn't realize you knew such lore."
"I didn't, but I do now," Araevin answered. "I will explain that later, as well."
"I can't say I like the idea of staying here one minute longer than I have to," Maresa said. "But if we can set something on fire before we leave, I'm all for that."
"I trust your judgment, Araevin," said Ilsevele.
"This way, then."
He led them to the guardroom, where the two dead fey'ri lay crumpled on the floor. There they found a sturdy vault in which the prisoner's belongings-or most of them, anyway-had been stored. In a few moments, Maresa had her rapier on her hip and her crossbow in her hands, while Ilsevele shrugged her mithral shirt over her shoulders and restrung her bow. Filsaelene put on a breastplate emblazoned with the symbol of Corellon Larethian, and armed herself with a slender long sword.
"Everybody ready?" Araevin asked.
His comrades nodded, determination plain on their faces.
Araevin began another spell, and drew a glowing portal of blue energy in the air.
"Follow me quickly, before the door closes," he said, then he ducked through, reappearing an instant later in the well of the mythal stone.
The chamber was much as he had envisioned it from the glimpse his spell eyes had afforded. It was a bell-shaped space, high and wide, at the bottom of a shaft that rose up into illimitable darkness. The floor was natural rock, rough and uneven, and in the center stood the mythal stone, a boulder about eight feet in diameter and somewhat flattened. The only remarkable thing about the stone was its color, a rosy pinkish hue that seemed almost translucent. Striated bands of green moss clung to its lower surface. He could feel the magical power in the air, as intense as a slap in the face. The only illumination in the room was a thin golden phosphorescence that seemed to dance on the walls, as faint as an aurora.
Ilsevele, Maresa, and Filsaelene followed him through the blue doorway, which faded an instant later. They stared at the mythal, silent with awe.
"Keep watch for me," Araevin told them. "I will be busy for a short time. Be on guard against enemies teleporting into the room. My efforts may be detected."
"That's a cheerful thought," Maresa muttered, but she moved to comply. The women spread out, surrounding Araevin and the mythal. Araevin glanced at his companions to make sure he knew where they were in case he had to flee quickly. Then he turned to address the mythal.
First he cast his spell of magesight again. As before, the mythal's weave of interlocking enchantments and wards became visible to him, brighter and even more clear than before. The mythal itself was a great, blazing sphere of gold, its depths complex and ever-shifting like the dancing of a great flame. The red-gold strands of the daemonfey modifications crisscrossed the surface of the sphere, but did not enter its depths. Much as a red glass held before a lantern would change the color of the light produced, so Sarya's spells altered the effects produced by the mythal without changing its essential nature.
She knows something about what she is doing, he decided. But her understanding is incomplete. She could have anchored those strands in the very fundament of the mythal, but she lacked the mythalcraft to do so.
Of course, he himself could not have perceived even that much without the knowledge the Nightstar had grafted to his mind.
"It's a good thing Sarya did not get her hands on the Nightstar," he murmured. "If she had had access to Saele-thil's lore, she could have done terrible things indeed."