Free Forsaken House by Richard Baker Page A

Their pieces of the crystal were gone as well, along with any trace of the two hapless sorcerers she had pressed into service.
    It was not unexpected, she told herself. The crystal disperses when its full power is invoked—that is the curse—and those who assist in the invocation of its might often pay with their lives.
    It was exactly what had happened when the Harpers destroyed Ascalhorn. The two fey’ri she would not miss,
    but she had hoped that perhaps one portion of the crystal might remain within her grasp after she had finished with it.
    “It is done,” she hissed at her followers. “You can get up.”
    Though smaller pieces of rock and splintered wood continued to patter onto the ground around them, Xhalph, Nurthel, and the other fey’ri picked themselves up off the ground. More than a few had suffered injury from the explosion, but Sarya didn’t even spare them a glance. Instead she looked on the empty vaults and naked halls of Nar Kerymhoarth, which were bared to the sky.
    “I did it,” she said, then laughed and sprang to her feet. “I did it!”
    She took to the air and flew down into the dungeon, alighting before a great brazen seal set above a huge well in the floor. With a quick invocation, she gestured and hurled the seal aside, laying open the well below.
    “Warriors of Reithel!” she called. “Ilviiri! Ursequarra! Come forth!”
    From the dark well below her came a flutter of movement. Slowly, laboriously, a single fey’ri climbed into the air, gazing at the ruin around him with malice dripping from his eyes.
    “I am free,” he hissed.
    Other fey’ri followed, struggling to fight their way free of the well, male and female both.
    Sarya watched the demonspawned elves emerge, dark delight in her face. She and her two sons had been imprisoned beneath Ascalhorn with dozens more of her followers elsewhere in the old fortresses of fallen Eaerlann. But the great bulk of her army—nearly two thousand of her fey’ri, each a deadly swordsman as well as a skilled sorcerer— had been entombed in Nar Kerymhoarth. That was the army with which she could finally build her empire, after her enemies had cheated her of victory so long ago.
    “You!” she called to the first fey’ri. “Do you know who I am?”
    The fey’ri turned at the sound of her voice. He was a tall
    fellow with long black hair, clad only in a short kilt. Small horns jutted from his forehead. He took one menacing step toward Sarya, then recognition flared in his eyes.
    “Lady Sarya!” he said. “You have come to free us! Give me a sword, and for you I will blood it with the warriors of Sharrven!”
    “Sharrven is no more,” Sarya said. “Nor Eaerlann, nor even Siluvanede. You have been imprisoned a long, long time, my fey’ri.”
    “How long has it been, my lady?”
    “Fifty centuries, warrior. Five thousand years you and your comrades have been imprisoned here.”
    The fey’ri warrior wailed in anguish, “It was only to be one thousand years! They lied to us!”
    “Yes,” said Sarya. “The cursed paleblooded elves of Eaerlann and Sharrven lied to you. They bound you and your fellows in Nar Kerymhoarth for a thousand years. And they died, or forgot their promises, or chose not to honor them. You will not have your vengeance upon those who jailed you, warrior. They have gone down into the dust of history, while their watch failed and their cities crumbled. The world has changed beyond recognition, while we dreamed away the centuries in our magical slumber.
    “But know this, my fey’ri: All our ancient foes are gone. Now no one remains to oppose us.”
     
    *****
     
    “Araevin, what is it?” Ilsevele set a hand on the mage’s arm, a frown on her face.
    They stood in a small, wooded glade high on a hillside, a few miles inland from Seamist and the city of Elion. Sunset painted the sky with brilliant rose and pale gold.
    “I am not sure,” he said. “There was something …” He peered toward the east, toward distant