The Ultimate Helm (38 page)

To the Cloakmaster, it was as though someone had flung open the gates of the Abyss to let the fiendish lords run free.

—
Don’t they realize that the captain has come? Don’t they realize that the ship cannot be theirs?

—
Some know, some don’t, but it no longer matters. They fight because it is their way. Their song is one of conquest. Our song is one of peace.

And the
Spelljammer
sang.

Finally, in his soul, he understood the
Spelljammer’s
high, sweet song. It was soft in his ears, flooding his entire being with soothing tranquility. Around the Broken Sphere, none could hear the
Spelljammer’s
song, but battles became less intense, and hatred and anger were momentarily dispelled.

The Cloakmaster was here because his path was true. Death had always been his enemy. Even in the War of the Lance, he had hated himself for the atrocities he had witnessed across the battlefields, and for what he had had to do. Yes, he had killed in self-defense. He had killed in defense of others. He had killed for an ideal that he would have died for, a purpose that had been far more important than a lone groundling named Moore.

And his purpose with the
Spelljammer
, he knew, was even greater.

He hesitated, had deliberately put it off, but his destiny could wait no longer, and his fight for life was the only thing that could save the universe from becoming enslaved by the unhumans.

This universe must survive, he thought. He knew that it was his duty to survive this war at the Broken Sphere, no matter how strong the enemy. Survive
 –
that was all the
Spelljammer
had to do. Fight, defend, destroy, if necessary, but... survive. That was all.

Until the time was right.

Teldin knew the
Spelljammer
could survive only so long... and that there would be no escape from its final destiny.

—
Life,
he sang, and his own song merged with that of the
Spelljammer.

—
Life,
they sang.

The great
spaakiil,
whose legacy had been forgotten by all who lived, turned its tail to the Broken Sphere and swam toward the war.

The
Spelljammer’s
change of course was noticed immediately. Some ships disengaged their enemies to veer away and wait to see what the
Spelljammer
was up to. Others ignored the great ship and pressed harder with their attacks against the smaller ships in an effort to defeat their enemies first.

Their concerns were unimportant. Their movements around the
Spelljammer
were nothing to the Cloakmaster, who looked upon the massed fleets as insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

Then the
Spelljammer
was in the thick of battle. Missiles shot from its towers to rend great holes in the ships fleeing before it. The
Spelljammer
tore through the mass of ships effortlessly, a juggernaut against the puny warships.

Three lampreys had engaged a single battle dolphin, firing upon it in a concentrated attack with their ballistae. The shadow of the
Spelljammer
fell across them like the specter of death, and the ships were torn asunder as the great ship plowed through them as if they were gnats. The battle dolphin was torn in half as the neogi tower caught it under the lower hull. Then the two halves of the dolphin separated, one to tumble across the starboard wing and into the endless flow, the other to spin out of control and collide with one of the fleeing lampreys. The remaining lampreys fell apart like sticks when the turning
Spelljammer
caught them from behind and shattered their hulls against the edge of its port wing.

The great battle began anew, and the
Spelljammer
no longer stayed out of the fight. In a wide, sweeping arc that cut through the enemy fleets, the
Spelljammer
was deliberate and careful, staying steadily on its planned course with its main objective always in clear focus. Wasp battled mosquito; nautiloid fought deathglory
 –
the
Spelljammer
tore through them all without hesitation, raining missiles and boulders, arrows and bolts, upon its outclassed enemies.

Teldin winced within the
Spelljammer’s
being. A eye tyrant ship had rammed the
Spelljammer
from below, carving a great gouge in the chitinous hull that had withstood brushes with comets and the deep cold of Icespace. He could feel the beholder crew disgorging through the ship’s hollow boarding ram, and he dropped the
Spelljammer
so that its underbelly scraped the top and starboard side of a dwarven citadel. The stone ship left a long scrape along the
Spelljammer’s
belly, but the rock cracked and shattered the tyrant out of the
Spelljammer’s
hull, to send it floating helplessly in the great ship’s wake. The citadel went spinning like a top, and the dwarves inside were hurled against the outer walls from the ship’s centrifugal force.

Single ships attacked the
Spelljammer
fruitlessly and were quickly dealt with by the crews manning the ship’s complement of ninety ballistae and sixty catapults. The Armory doors were wide open on the main deck, and the population was taking supplies and building extra weapons for all the towers, both human and unhuman. Ammunition was plentiful and was shared by all the communities.

Then the Cloakmaster felt the ships around the
Spelljammer
separating in some semblance of organization. There were two squadrons of ships closing in: four hammerships, arranged in a classic diamond attack formation, and the six deathspiders, hexagonally flanking the command mindspider.

Teldin moved his arm. The ship banked to port and turned to stare down the approaching hammerships.

He took a deep breath and felt the energy well up in him, around him, through him, pulsing with a heartbeat of thunder and fire.

He shivered as the energy traveled hot up his spine.

High above the decks of the
Spelljammer,
its great tail tensed, quivering imperceptibly to the humans below. It glowed white hot for an instant, then a flaming bubble of incredible energy shot out of its tip and absorbed the hammerships.

The explosion took out seven other ships that had been stupid enough to stray near the attack. First there was blinding white light that blotted everything from view, then the fires of the
Spelljammer’s
annihilation weapon spread throughout the phlogiston, which instantly erupted for a radius of more than two thousand feet. The
Spelljammer rocked
as the flow exploded in its path. Parts of vessels
 –
a splintered mast, half of a light ballista, brass fittings
 –
shot through the
Spelljammer’
s air envelope to embed deeply in tower walls.

The
Spelljammer
made a sudden turn to starboard, faster than anyone had expected the great ship could ever make. The Cloakmaster focused all his enhanced senses on the remaining squadron of ships in his path, the neogi deathspiders.

He thought of Cwelanas, whom he knew was racing for the safety of her smalljammer. He thought of the tattoo with which the neogi B’Laath’a had branded her. He thought of the simple words that had drawn him from his home so long ago.

Keep it from the neogi. Take it to the creators.

The neogi deathspiders were closing.
The neogi.

He felt the energy tingling up his spine.

Cwelanas, he thought.

Energy flared from the
Spelljammer’s
tail in a comet of raw white power. The sphere hurtled down at the onrushing deathspiders and exploded in a nova that created a new, temporary sun in the flow.

The deathspiders exploded, burned, and melted in the coldness of the flow, and what was left was but charred dust, molecules of waste that had once been evil, breathing neogi and their weapons of senseless destruction.

The
Spelljammer
sailed through the fine debris of the neogi squadron and twisted deliberately to point toward the Broken Sphere.

Around the vessel, the remaining fleets watched, turned, prepared for one final assault against the legendary ship.

The Cloakmaster smiled grimly.

The
Spelljammer
sang.

As one, the
Spelljammer
and the fleets behind it headed for the Broken Sphere.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“... What is this reality, this existence, that we ourselves have not made?...”

Kai Tato, Shou wizard; “Dance of the Eons”;

reign of Gran Aurora

The warriors made it to the bottom floor of the Armory without encountering the senseless shivaks. “Why aren’t they stopping us?” CassaRoc asked as they hurried through an immense warehouse of weapons and supplies.

“I don’t know,” Cwelanas said. “Either Teldin has ordered them to let us pass, or it’s because I now bear an ultimate helm.”

The doors swung inward upon their approach, and they blinked at the bright light of the phlogiston. CassaRoc hefted Stardawn’s body and tossed it unceremoniously under the battlements behind the Old Elvish Academy. “There.” He wiped his hands on his chest. “On this side, we’re closer to the garden doors to port,” CassaRoc said. “We ought to cut between the Shou tower and the dwarven citadel.”

Cwelanas nodded. The
Spelljammer
shifted then, and they watched as the ship sped deliberately toward a mass of enemy fleets.

“What’s going to happen?” Djan asked.

Cwelanas stared at him and shook her head sadly. Estriss answered him, knowingly.
Teldin is giving us a chance to live... and I believe he will try to make this as even a battle as he can.

The enemy ships appeared considerably closer, more formidable. “Bah,” CassaRoc said. “He will destroy himself and the
Spelljammer,
just like I said before.”

“No,” Cwelanas said, “it’s more than that. Teldin...” She stared off, as though her helm were letting her see visions of a future to come. “Believe me, he will be fine.”

They looked at her strangely, then CassaRoc said, “I suppose we have to trust you, too.”

She smiled. “Yes, I guess you do.”

They broke into a run, Na’Shee taking the rear, and started past the Shou tower toward the entrance to the gardens, where the Cloakmaster had told them the smalljammer waited. The
Spelljammer’s
port wing was relatively clear of fighting; most of the battles were being fought in towers, by the communities protecting the ship from the oncoming enemies.

The gardens were located in a cavernous chamber beneath the city. In reality, the chamber was an immense hangar, with huge, louvered doors located on each side, behind the
Spelljammer’s
massive gills. The doors were barely open, and closing even more, when the party arrived. The warriors lowered themselves to the deck and crawled underneath the port door. “The Dark Times have come,” Cwelanas told them. “It was not just a legend. The Bonding brings with it a time of birth, the Dark Times, when the gardens must be closed to nurture the smalljammers...”

She trailed off, unable to take in the immensity of the gardens. The landscape stretched off into fields of grain, into seeming forests of jamberry trees and other plants cultivated from across the spheres. The ceiling of the gardens stood about 150 feet above her head and was lined by countless light panels that provided cycles of both day and night to the crops and plants that made up the ship’s primary food supply. “Where?” Cwelanas wondered.

Chaladar pointed beyond a vegetable garden to the circular forest of jamberry trees. “Teldin is smart. I would bet that he hid the smalljammer there, in order to keep it hidden from view.”

Cwelanas plunged into the wood. The ground was littered with leaves and fallen jamberries, and she rushed between the trees to discover a dirt path that rounded through the wood.

On the far side of the path, at the edge of a grove encircled by the path, she stopped. The others gathered around her.

The smalljammer gleamed in the light, untouched and fresh, like a newborn child. Like the
Spelljammer,
the smalljammer was manta-shaped and made of a chitinous substance that was shaded from light blue to light purple. On its back was an organically constructed cabin comprising two decks and a jewellike observation deck on top. Its eyes were windows to the control cabin, and its tail, identical to that of its parent, hung over its body. Its wingspan stretched more than 140 feet, and the ship sat silently, serenely, waiting for the gentle touch of its first pilot.

Cwelanas carefully swung up onto a wing and entered the cabin through the open door on the wing deck. Most of the inside deck was open space, more than enough for a fair amount of cargo or passengers. The innermost cabins were unfurnished rooms, ready to be made habitable. The bulbous forward cabin contained only a seat for the ship’s captain. Hatchways from there led to the upper deck and the roof. The upper deck contained several more personal cabins, the galley, and a storage room.

Cwelanas ran her hand down the side of the chair, then she sat slowly, stiffly in the throne. For a moment, the palms of her hands grew hot as energy seemingly transferred from the ship into her, then back again. She shivered, as though a breath had been blown on the back of her neck. She felt strong, refreshed, and even the throne seemed softer.

Estriss hissed calmly, an expression of contentment.
You are now the ship’s captain,
the mind flayer said.

Cwelanas sat blinking, astonished. The throne had changed shape, conforming to her size and posture. No chair had ever felt so comfortable. “The captain... me. I’m the new —”

The hangar door outside the ship rang with a deafening impact, and the door thudded inward, bowing under some great mass that had collided against it from the outside. The
Spelljammer
rocked unsteadily, sending the warriors reeling to the side of the smalljammer.

Cwelanas sprang from the captain’s chair and climbed up the hatchway to stand at the pinnacle of the observation cabin. “Damn,” she said. “Not this.”