He gave the bars of his cell an angry shake; they did not move much at all. Then he commenced pacing and worrying at the numerous things that seemed to be out of his control at the moment. He’d succeeded in finding Seila, only to watch her carried away again by the vile Cailek Balathorp while he was very much powerless to prevent it. “Perhaps I should have come up with some more cautious plan than leaping through the portal after Seila,” he muttered. He’d assumed that with his magic and native cleverness it would not be difficult to escape the dark elves if they captured him, but now he was much less confident of that. And every moment he remained trapped in this cold, cheerless cell, Balathorp was dragging Seila farther away from him!
He sighed and stretched himself out on a cold stone ledge that served as a bed. Where would Balathorp take Seila? He was certainly through in Raven’s Bluff after Jack had exposed him in front of everybody at the Lord Mayor’s Revel, and Balathorp’s part in the attack had cemented his place as an enemy of the city. It seemed that Balathorp intended to quit Chumavhraele at his earliest convenience, so presumably the tunnel or tunnels to the east led to the surface. And were Jelan and Norwood still fighting their way down to the drow realm, or had Dresimil already sprung her trap? Did Raven’s Bluff even have sufficient forces to defeat the dark elves if they had control over the wild mythal? Jack glanced toward the left-hand wall of his cell and realized that he was looking in the direction of the mythal stone on the lakeshore a mile distant. He could feel the magic of the device through the castle walls, much as one could feel the direction and strength of the sun even with eyes closed. It was much stronger, more focused, than it had been the last time he was in Chumavhraele.
Jack frowned as he considered the subtle tug and play of unseen forces around him. “What are Jaeren and Jezzryd up to?” he wondered. He felt a certain protective impulse toward the wild mythal; after all, he was fairly certain the goddess Mystra had once asked him to look after it, although it was possible that was only a dream. It was a strange fate that had bound up his magic with the work of drow archmages ten thousand years before his birth, he reflected. The mythal’s touch had rested on him long before he’d been encysted within it for a century; he knew now that it was the source of his magic. He likely wouldn’t have been a sorcerer at all if he had been born in some less magical city.
He was roused from his reflections by a sudden clamor of battle not far from his cell. Steel rang against steel just outside the dungeon in which he was imprisoned, followed by the thundering detonations of powerful battle-magic. Even within his cell he could feel the wash of heat and smell the acrid brimstone of flames washing through the chambers outside. Drow shouted to one another, rallying to meet the threat. “Norwood’s armsmen!” he decided, scrambling to his feet. His freedom might be at hand … assuming the soldiers discovered the guardroom. He hurried over to the bars of the cell, peering toward the door leading to the guardroom and waiting for it to open.
There was a clatter of swordplay from the other side of the door and a quick rattle of heavy keys-and then a dark elf warrior threw open the door and rushed over to Jack’s cell. The drow glanced up and down the hallway, then raised his crossbow and aimed it at Jack. “You are coming with me,” he snarled. “Stand back from the door.”
“So much for the notion of rescue,” Jack muttered. He stepped back from the cell door under the threat of the dark elf’s weapon. It seemed likely that the guard was under orders not to kill him, but he would certainly lose any opportunity of slipping away if he were drugged with sleep-venom again. The dark elf reached for the keys at his belt and took a step toward the cell, but at that moment he heard something behind him and spun to face it-only to catch a thrown dagger in his breast. The dark elf staggered back to the bars, his face gray, and started to raise his crossbow at Jack before collapsing to the floor.
Jack stared at the dead drow in astonishment before he glanced up at the guardroom door. The half-orc swordsman Narm stood there, straightening up from his throw, and beside him stood Myrkyssa Jelan. “Elana! Narm!” he exclaimed. “This is a welcome turn of events. I feared I was being summoned to my execution.”
“It’s still a possibility,” Narm grunted. “There is a whole castle full of drow around us-the rest of our troops are tied up in the tunnels.” He hurried forward to take the keyring from the fallen guard’s belt and began working at the cell door.
Jelan took a moment to examine the cell, then positioned herself to keep an eye on the doorway behind them. “Hello, Jack,” she said. “Somehow I knew that sooner or later I would see you behind bars. There is a certain ironic satisfaction to this moment.”
“How did you find me?”
“I guessed that you would be held in the castle, and led a small company around the tunnel fighting to see if we could spirit you and Seila away while Dresimil was busy with Norwood’s troops. We found our way in through the kitchens.” Jelan looked at the empty cells, and frowned. “By the way, where is Seila?”
“Balathorp has her. He and his slavers are leaving this place-in fact, they may already be gone.”
“That is unfortunate, because Lord Norwood is very anxious to get her back safe and unharmed.”
“As am I,” Jack replied. He met Jelan’s eyes. “Thank you for coming to our aid.”
Jelan snorted. “I did not do it for you, Jack. It seems Dresimil Chumavh has realized the very scheme I had in mind when I attempted to seize the mythal in the Year of Wild Magic. Since I have some aspirations of my own, I find myself unwilling to stand aside and let her plans proceed. Besides, you and I have some unfinished business.”
“If you are angry about the affair with the Sarkonagael’s spell, I am sure that Norwood is angrier,” he said. “After all, he paid me seven thousand gold crowns for half a spell.”
Narm looked up as he fumbled with the keys. “He paid you how much for that book?” he asked.
“I, ah, presented a request to be compensated for some additional expenses. It is a routine ploy in this sort of negotiation.” Jack grimaced. “I suspect he will want that money returned now.”
The swordsman found the right key, unlocked the cell, and opened the door. “Finally,” he muttered. “Let’s continue the conversation elsewhere. This is not a good place to linger.”
“Agreed,” said Jack. He stepped out and helped himself to the sword and crossbow of the fallen guard. Then he followed Jelan and Narm as they hurried out of the guardroom into the castle’s dimly lit corridors. Five dark elf warriors sprawled dead just outside the door; fighting continued elsewhere in the fortress. The warlord and the swordsman turned left and headed toward the sound of battle until they came to a large, thick-pillared hall at the foot of a wide staircase leading from the dungeon level up into the castle proper. Dozens of orc slave-soldiers and a handful of dark elves sprawled on the floor and the steps.
In the shadows of the large pillars in the hall, several adventurers took cover from drow archers and spellcasters who were themselves out of sight at the top of the stairs. Kurzen, Halamar, and Arlith watched the right-hand side of the stairs. On the other side of the room, several of Jelan’s Moon Daggers-the elf mage Kilarnan, along with the Tempus-priest whom Jack had last seen at the beholder’s hall in Sarbreen, and the tattooed swordsman who had accompanied Jelan on that occasion-guarded the left-hand side of the room.
“I see that you found him,” the priest said to Jelan.
The Warlord nodded. “You may remember Jack Ravenwild from the Temple of the Soulforger. Jack, this is Wulfrad, and the fellow with the tattoos is Monagh. Kilarnan I believe you already know.” Jack bowed to Jelan’s companions, doing his best to ignore the suspicious looks they gave him; they hadn’t exactly parted on very good terms, after all.