The Ultimate Helm (15 page)

“Amid the death,

Amid the hatred,

One shall come

To honor the ages.

Blood will run

From bow to stern;

Destiny calls,

And all will learn

That Life is not

To be torn asunder.

Life is wisdom

And visions of wonder....”

Excerpt, “A Chant Between Two Worlds” by an anonymous bard;

reign of Elad.

The main level of the beholder ruins was uncommonly bright. Usually the beholders disdained such light, preferring instead the comfortable coolness of the shadows.

But, for their honored guests, they were more than willing to make an exception.

Amid the toppled columns and the ruined statuary, ShiCaga the Enchantress, chieftess of the ogre population, stood surrounded by her towering sons, HiRotu and AziKash, and ten of her misshapen ogre warriors. ShiCaga was beautiful by ogre standards, and her face was decorated with white powders and lotions that made her appear like an ugly, towering ghost.

Opposite the ogres, waiting near one of the broad staircases spiraling up to the beholder quarters, stood a dozen representatives of the minotaur race. Onehorn, their newly elected leader, snorted angrily at the head of the group. His was the mark of the broken horn; and his was the shame of murdering his own king under thrall of the beholders’ hypnotic powers. The eye tyrants had released the minotaurs from their spells, knowing well that the charms would shortly wear off anyway, and that the minotaurs could not be charmed forever. A treaty, Gray Eye had decided, would keep the minotaurs on the beholders’ leash and send a powerful signal to the
Spelljammer’s
general population.

Then the minotaurs could be disposed of when the time was right.

Onehorn groused at the beholders’ rule, but he also knew that a treaty would keep the minotaurs alive
 –
long enough, at least, until they could plan a suitable revenge
 –
and from under the eye tyrants’ spells of subservience. He shuddered with anger, remembering how Breakox had been slaughtered by his own uncontrollable hand.
Breakox’s blood was on his hands!
Now, though, the protection of the minotaurs was most important. Vengeance, he determined, would most definitely come later, but his shame would last forever.

The final group arrived through the ruins’ huge doors. Each standing more than twenty feet tall, the seven hill giants stooped to enter the ruins, then stretched to their full heights inside. As they came to a stop in the center of the room, the colony of beholders, led by their ancient leader, Gray Eye, floated down through the circular entrance in the ceiling.

The beholders, surrounded by their invited guests, hovered a few feet off the floor. On a table behind them lay a long piece of parchment detailing a series of agreements.

“Welcome,” Gray Eye said, “to the first treaty of the beholders, and to the beginning of the end of the neogi.”

The hill giants, a family of renegades from the giant tower who felt stifled under Taja Deeplunder’s rule, grunted their approval. Their substitute leader, Torg Stoneater, rested his hand on the hilt of his mammoth battle-axe. “We welcome the chance to fight with our allies, the minotaurs. The giants have been lazy for too long under the rule of Taja Deeplunder. She is more neutral in matters of war than we prefer. We crave battle. We crave the spilling of our enemies’ blood.”

Gray Eye watched the giant with its opaque eye. “You will have your chance soon, Stoneater. The battles have already begun across the ship, and we must strike against the neogi before the Cloakmaster brings about the Dark Times. If we hesitate, our forces will be the first to feel starvation under the rule of the humans.”

The assembled forces nodded in agreement. ShiCaga of the ogres stepped forward and said, “Let’s get on with it, then. Let’s sign the damned thing.”

Gray Eye stared at her balefully. “That, chieftess, is precisely what you shall do. You have all read the treaty.” The eye tyrant asked the ogre, “Do you wish the honors?”

ShiCaga took the quill from the inkwell on the table and hurriedly signed her name. “There,” she said, “now let’s draw some blood.”

Onehorn strode to the table and signed the treaty, then turned to Stoneater and handed him the quill. “You honor us,” the minotaur said.

“Your leader was strong,” Stoneater remarked. “He was originally of the hill giants, as you probably know. We respected his strength, as we respect yours.” The giant cast a quick glance at the beholders. “There will be time later...” he whispered.

Onehorn nodded briskly and walked away. The giant signed the treaty, then threw the pen onto the table.

“We are done,” said Gray Eye. “We are now the Beholder Alliance, and I promise you unconditional victory in our war against the neogi.

“Our resources are great, our blades are sharp, and our forces are mighty. Now... we must plan for battle. By the end of the day, our swords will be red with the cold blood of our enemies, and then our prize will be laid out before us and our forces will be unbeatable.

“The neogi will be dead. We will have nothing to fear from the Cloakmaster, and the Dark Times will never come.”

*****

Building by building, Gaye explored the great ship. Her astral body floated unseen among the humans and the dwarves, the illithids and the halflings; through the open market she went, and above, through the ship’s stores, and through all the floors and rooms of Leoster’s Guild tower. She passed silently through the walls of the shivak terminal and the illithid tower and stayed for a while in the Citadel of Kova and studied the actions of the dwarves.

Although she had commanded invisibility to the people of the
Spelljammer,
she could see her own innate energies flowing about her, permeating her being with soft, golden light. Her robes, the robes of an acolyte, whispered around her as though in a spectral wind, and the belt that was her badge of accomplishment glowed from within the ancient symbols that had been affixed there.

Her psionics training was complete. Under the tutelage of the fal One Six Nine, she had become a master of psionics, of mental powers that seemed, to some, to be magical. She had long been apart from Teldin, a man she had come to love, and then had to leave. With One Six Nine, she had decided to seek her own destiny, as had the Cloakmaster, and it was then, in her final days of training, that her psionic abilities had shown her that their destinies were intertwined, that her trial by fire would take place, not by the fal’s side, but millions of miles away, on a ship called the
Spelljammer
; and by the side of the Cloakmaster...

Where she had always wanted to be.

Invisible, she saw the battle begin between the ship’s elves and goblins, as an imperious elf named Carrara, who bore a shield emblazoned with an elven eagle, ran her broadsword through a goblin named Kral. Then the forces were met on both sides, and she could sense the pain and the souls as blood was spilled; she took her leave and vanished through the walls of the goblin quarters, then back, into the
Spelljammer’s
tail.

On her journey through the ship, she saw armies readying for battle, warriors practicing sword thrusts before mirrors. In meeting halls and in taverns she heard whispers of treachery, threats of war. She overheard words of hatred and watched weapons being sharpened and prepared. Over and over she heard talk of a myth, foretelling the coming of the Cloakmaster. In the chambers of the elves, the illithids, all the longest-lived races that populated the great ship, those who remembered the last Dark Times were filled with fear, for the Dark Times meant nothing but a long period of starvation for the weak, of interminable battles over food and supplies.

It was the coming of the Cloakmaster, she knew, that would bring war once again. Soon the decks of the
Spelljammer
would run red as the ship’s various factions killed to take the cloak before the Cloakmaster could achieve his destiny.

From somewhere across the universe, she shuddered.

Soon her search through the
Spelljammer
would be complete. The astral form of Gaeadrelle Goldring, whose body lay in a deep trance several million miles away, in Herdspace, would soon return to the
Spelljammer
and to Teldin Moore, to Teldin the Cloakmaster, and help guide him to his destiny...

A destiny she was not sure he would survive.

Chapter Eleven

“... It is not the answers that are important. It is the quest itself that defines its own significance. It is the courage to follow the course dictated by your most secret, innermost needs, and not a course directed by your base desires or follies. When you complete a quest, you have found yourself...

Bestwick, adventurer;

reign of InDar.

Leoster IV, king of the Guild tower, stayed with Cwelanas for more than three hours
 –
time spent purging the noxious evils that had been twisted throughout Cwelanas’s mind.

The damage to her mind was undeniably the work of a powerful neogi mage; the bright tattoo was proof enough of neogi handiwork, but its placement was unnecessary; the tattoo was nonfunctional, simply a sign of the black mage’s sadistic ego and his hatred for humanity.

At first, Cwelanas was restrained to the bed with ropes, and her injured arm was strapped to her stomach. Later, Leoster kept her calm with spells and absorbed some of her pain with his own considerable empathic skills. He felt her horror blossom like a blood-red pinpoint of fire as he saw what the neogi had put Cwelanas through, as he felt her mind being raped by the neogi and twisted to murder the man she loved.

Leoster screamed out with her once, tied by her pain and fear. The guards rushed in, thinking the neogi spy had done something horrible to the old man, and they gaped at the arcane sigils drawn upon the walls in what looked like blood and chalk, at the intricate patterns etched in saltpeter and ground bones upon the floor, at the flickering balls of light floating brightly at her head and hands and feet. Leoster, drenched with sweat, seemed feral, no longer a man born of nobility, the head of a royal house. His body was taut and shivering with the strain of sucking the evils from Cwelanas’s soul. He stared at the guards and shouted through bared teeth, “Get out! Get out now, or she will be lost to us!”

The guards backed out slowly, staring at the elf’s halfclosed eyes, swirling inside with a pale blue mist. They closed the door behind them, and stood outside with their swords ready. Never again would they consider Leoster anything less than a true king.

Leoster came out a long time later. His face was drawn and pale, seemingly a decade older than when he had gone into her room. But he stood proudly, confident that the elf had been saved. Under his care, her seizures of murderous rage had been quelled, and he had put her under a spell of sleep, so that his magic could more easily work its way through her mind and cleanse her of all evil influence.

Teldin paced outside the door. Leoster shook his head, beaded with sweat. “They did their work on her, I grant you, Cloakmaster. For a while there, I thought she would be lost forever.”

He looked into Teldin’s face. “Part of her didn’t want to live, not after what she tried to do to you. You’ll need to take care of that, I think. I’ve done all I can do, all anyone can do. Her elven strength helped her. If she had been human, I doubt she would have survived the neogi magic.”

He placed a hand on Teldin’s shoulder. “Now, if you love her
 –
and if these old eyes of mine can still see right, I think you do
 – you
have to bring her back. Show her you care, that you understand it wasn’t her. That’s what she’s afraid of: that you won’t forgive her.”

Teldin nodded silently, then thanked the king for coming. Leoster quickly admonished him to let Cwelanas sleep for a while. “Don’t go in just yet. She needs her rest,” Leoster said. “She needs to heal. There will be time enough for reconciliations.”

Teldin let her sleep for several hours before his concern for her got the better of him. He left a meeting with CassaRoc and Chaladar and climbed the stairs to her quarters.

Two armed guards stood outside in the corridor. Teldin thought they were unnecessary, but CassaRoc had insisted, as a precaution. “Look what happened last time,” he had said.

Teldin reached for the door.

The room smelled of incense and medicine. He closed the door behind him and stood over her, watching her face in the light from the flow.

Her hair was damp and stringy, where she had perspired heavily during her struggles against Leoster’s magic. Her face seemed thinner, paler, and she breathed peacefully in her sleep.

Her wrist bones had been healed by CassaRoc’s healers, but her arm was heavily bandaged as a precaution, and had been salved with a numbing potion. The sheets had fallen to reveal her shoulders, the swell of her breasts. He reached to cover her, then stared in rising anger at the brand that would forever mar her once-perfect flesh.

Teldin knew he would kill the neogi bastard who had marked her. For once, Teldin wanted blood on his hands.

He brought the sheets around her neck and sat down in a wooden chair near the bunk. He watched Cwelanas for a few minutes, then let his eyes close as he rested. Far too much had happened to him already, and he had been aboard the
Spelljammer
for only a day. Now he felt it in his bones, and the soft light and the smells relaxed him, washed over him like a spell.

He woke to a gentle touch on his knee. He pulled himself up and smiled at Cwelanas, who had reached out and awakened him. He held her hand in his, felt her cool, soft skin against his calloused palm.

They spoke simultaneously.

“How do you feel?” he said.

“Are you all right?” said she.

Cwelanas smiled weakly. I’m sorry,” she whispered. A tear formed in the comer of her eye.

Teldin bent over and kissed her hand. “You didn’t do anything, you know that. It was the neogi.”