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  “Take that,” he gasped, and fired four glowing darts into the gaping hole already scored in Grimlight’s body.

  Grimlight shuddered and groaned, coiling up its great serpentine body into a squirming ball. It threw up its head to the ceiling, hissing and bubbling deep in its throat, and Grayth staggered forward. One hand cupped on the pommel, the human drove his sword up through the soft white underside of the neck, the jaw, and into the monster’s brain. The creature shuddered once and lay still.

  Grayth collapsed across the monster he’d just killed, leaning on his sword.

  “Thank Lathander that’s done,” he groaned. “I think I’m getting too old for this.”

  Ilsevele straightened, lowering her bow. She looked around and caught sight of Araevin.

  “Araevin! You’re hurt!” she cried, and ran over to take his arm.

  Araevin tried to shrug off her help, but his legs felt rubbery and weak.

  “I’ll survive,” he managed. “Let’s find the telkiira before we do anything else. And keep an eye open for the daemonfey. The last time we were near a telkiira, they appeared.”

  Ilsevele looked closely into his face and frowned.

  “Are you trying to break my heart?” she asked. “First that insane flight of yours against the whole fey’ri army, and now this. Are you trying to make a widow of me before we even marry?”

  “You’re taking every chance I am,” he replied. “I’ll stop when you do.”

  He moved over to Grimlight’s hoard. Several of the rotten old chests had been smashed into splinters by the creature’s thrashings, and coins and jewels lay scattered all over the cavern floor.

  “So what was that, anyway?” Maresa asked. “Some kind of legless dragon?”

  “A behir,” Grayth replied. “A little like a dragon.” He straightened up and sheathed his sword, turning to join the search. “So, will this stone look like—”

  From the shadows by the steep cleft of the cavern stream, a bright blue ray shot out and struck Araevin in the middle of his torso. Araevin staggered back in surprise, but he was no more wounded than he had been a moment before. Instead, a shimmering blue field of dancing light clung to his body, sparkling in the darkness of the cave.

  A dimension lock! he realized.

  “Watch out! The daemonfey!” he cried.

  Six demons appeared in the behir’s cavern, wreathed in foul-smelling smoke. From the cleft more of the fey’ri poured into the room, their eyes glowing red with hate. Behind the demonic warriors came Araevin’s enemy, the fierce sorcerer with the armor of golden scales and the jeweled eye patch.

  He gestured at Araevin and his comrades and shouted, “Take them alive! The mage is anchored to this plane and cannot escape us this time!”

  Araevin heard Ilsevele’s bow thrum, while Maresa swore a vile oath and Grayth drew his sword with a shrill ring of steel. Araevin snapped out the words of terrible ice blast he’d learned from the second telkiira, directing a great white fountain of unendurable frigidity at the fey’ri clambering up into the chamber. The first fey’ri paled into translucent scarlet ice and shattered, and two more staggered under the weight of the magical rime that covered them, stumbling to the cavern floor with the creaking of frost and cracking of ice.

  The fey’ri countered with spells of their own. Araevin tried to leap aside from a shimmering hoop of magic that formed in the air and settled down over him, pinning his arms to his side. He managed to gasp out a counter and dismiss the binding spell, only to be knocked senseless by a word of power spoken by the fey’ri captain. He reeled drunkenly across the floor, and a pair of vrocks seized his arms and bore him to the ground.

  Distantly, he saw Ilsevele immobilized by a pair of webs that glued her in place with thick, ropy strands of white. Another fey’ri sorcerer captured Maresa with a will-sapping enchantment that bereft her of the volition to move and fight. Her chin sank down to her chest, the point of her rapier drooped to the ground, and the fey’ri warriors hurled her to the ground and began binding her with strong cords.

  Stinking of blood and filth, the vulture-demons pinning him wrenched Araevin around and jerked up his head by his hair, laying their talons at his throat. Grayth, fighting with his back to the cave wall, reluctantly stopped and threw down his sword. He, too, was seized and bound with cords.

  The spell that had struck Araevin senseless began to fade, and he could hear and comprehend again. The vrocks gripping his arms croaked and chuckled with evil glee, clacking their beaks.

  “Let us kill just-t one,” they begged. “We’ll make it slow and delicious-s. Elf tastes so good-d.”

  “They are not to be killed until I tell you to kill them,” said the fey’ri captain.

  He approached Araevin, his one eye gleaming with malice. He held up his hand the third telkiira pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I suppose I should thank you, paleblood,” the demon-elf sneered. “Not only did you lead us to this stone, you dispatched quite a formidable guardian for us. After all the trouble you’ve caused me, it is only fitting.”

  Araevin rallied enough to raise his head and meet the sinister demonspawn’s gaze.

  “You’ve … got your prize,” he gasped. “What do you need us for, hellspawn?”

  “I need you to find me one more gemstone, paleblood,” the fey’ri said, grinning. “As for your companions, well, I have no use for them at all—unless you prove uncooperative, in which case you’ll get to watch them beg for death before we’re done. I suppose it’s up to you.”

  CHAPTER 15

  7 Tarsakh, the Year of Lightning Storms

  The ruined city of Myth Glaurach seemed empty indeed, without the fey’ri legion encamped among its broken walls and shattered domes. Sarya Dlardrageth prowled the palace she had claimed as her own, restlessly stalking the halls where less than a month before she had held her council of war with the leaders of the fey’ri Houses.

  For the past five days her army had retreated north through the desolate vales leading away from Evereska. The vengeance she intended for Evereska would have to wait until she replaced her losses from the failed assault on the Sunset Gate. Of course, she had no shortage of demons and yugoloths. Given a tenday or two to summon more, she might even be able to field an army stronger than that with which she had initially attacked, whereas the Evereskans had no such source of replacements available.

  Time, she thought. After five thousand years of imprisonment, now I have so little of it.

  She looked up at her son Xhalph, who stood watching her, and said, “I don’t like the idea of leaving my army without supervision, and I must return soon. So, quickly, how are you faring in the High Forest? Be honest.”

  Xhalph bared his fangs and folded his four arms in a double row.

  “I have driven the wood elves to the foot of the Lost Peaks,” he said. “I destroyed a dozen of their villages and slaughtered hundreds in each place, but they have finally assembled in strength in the mountains. Now that they have been driven together, I am gathering my wolves into one pack. We will fall on them soon.”

  “Have you seen any soldiers from Evermeet?”

  “No, but there is an expedition from Silverymoon on its way to reinforce the wood elves: humans, dwarves, and paleblooded race traitors, a little more than a thousand strong.”

  “Breden Yesve’s warband was supposed to keep Silverymoon out of the High Forest,” Sarya said. “Did he just allow the palebloods to march right by him?”

  “The Silvaeren marched south from Everlund and passed west of Yesve,” Xhalph replied. “He had to march far and fast to meet the humans when they left the Yartar road, and all he has been able to do is harry their advance. Since he could not stop them, I recalled his warband to add it to my own forces.”

  “That is sound. I approve,” Sarya said. She thought over the suggestion, her slender tail slithering anxiously from side to side. “Evereska has proven harder than I had thought. A strong expedition from Evermeet has rein
forced the LastHome. We were checked in our first attempt to enter the Vine Vale.”

  “Abandon the orcs and giants,” Xhalph rumbled. “Evereska can be taken with an aerial assault while the palebloods’ army sits in the mountains. You can sack the city without even engaging them.”

  Sarya looked over her shoulder at her towering son, and cocked an eyebrow. Xhalph had little use for stratagems of maneuver, but from time to time he surprised her—which did not mean that he was right.

  “We lack the numbers to take the city with fey’ri alone,” she said.

  “Each of our fey’ri is a formidable opponent, Mother. Elf for elf, our warriors are better fighters than the palebloods.”

  “I have studied Evereska’s defenses exhaustively through the telthukiilir, Xhalph. The forces that guard the city outnumber our fey’ri legion, and include many mages and clerics. And you discount the mythal,” Sarya said as she paced back and forth. “It may be that we could take the city, but we would suffer dreadful losses. More demons can be summoned, more orcs and giants bribed or threatened to march in our forces, but my fey’ri are irreplaceable, and they would be the ones who die in an aerial attack. Your suggestion would also leave our enemy’s true strength, the army at the Sentinel pass, untouched. We would not keep the city for long.”

  “Do we need to?” Xhalph growled.

  Sarya glared at him.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “It means nothing to win a battle if ultimately it will cost us the war. When I take Evereska, I mean to keep it. Our enemies destroyed our homeland, leaving us an army without a realm. We will not long survive in this new age if we remain such.”

  “Should I abandon my attack on the wood elves and bring my warriors to join you at Evereska?”

  “No. I need to draw out their army and expose it. You must press your attack on the wood elves with all your strength and ferocity. Meanwhile, I will retreat from Evereska’s gates, and feign a disordered withdrawal while I rebuild our numbers. The palebloods will be tempted to pursue. After all, they will want to make sure that my army is truly defeated, and does not make its way to the High Forest to finish the destruction of the wood elves. But I will lay a trap for them.”

  Xhalph grinned and said, “Turning an enemy’s hopes to disaster is the essence of strategy. But what if the Evereskans do not give chase?”

  “Then I will in fact bring the entire fey’ri legion to the High Forest, and we will make a smoking hell of the mongrel elves’ homeland. After which, we will add your soldiers to mine, and return to Evereska to finish what we started. Now go, and redouble your efforts against the wood elves. I have some special preparations to make.”

  Xhalph bowed and said, “I will make you a throne of Eaerlanni skulls, Mother.”

  He stepped back and teleported away, vanishing in an orange cloud of brimstone.

  “You’ll have to catch them first,” Sarya said after him.

  She took one more look from the portico and stepped inside the hall. The city was not completely empty. A hundred or so fey’ri remained behind to garrison the place and guard the treasures Sarya had brought to the city, and bands of orcs and trolls encircled the hilltop with their squalid camps, making ready to march on the High Forest and join the fighting there.

  She abandoned the ruined splendor of the grand mage’s hall, and descended into the secret delvings beneath the hill, passing through the steep tunnels and great caverns, taking wing when it suited her. She disliked so much stone over her head—how could she not, after so many centuries of living entombment?—but she was not so weak-willed that she allowed herself to avoid going where she must.

  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.