The Ultimate Helm Read online

  The Spelljammer sang out then. It sang again to the kindori, to the stony contemplators in self-absorbed exile along the Caltassan asteroid belt, to the great dreamers lumbering slowly through the endless sea that was the void; it cried out to all who would listen with their hearts and dream at its song of wonder. The high tones of its songs rang off the spheres, recreating its long journeys through the universe. Each planet was a line, each sphere a stanza. Suns were born and died within a sentence, and the song’s last wistful notes stretched out to echo through the void, where perhaps even the challenger would hear, and perhaps understand, and feel a little bit of the Spelljammer’s sadness, and the limitless joy, at his approach.

  At the consummation of their long-awaited destiny.

  For the Spelljammer knew that, with the challenger approaching, with change screaming for completion throughout its massive body, this voyage would be its last.

  It glanced at the tombstone that was the black, broken sphere, and cried out one last time, a question answered only by the silence of the long-dead, and the Spelljammer slowly banked toward the approaching nautiloid. The man had come so far, yet had one last test to complete before the great ship would allow him to take its helm and lead it into its unknown future.

  Their fate lay here, forever intertwined, where the Spelljammer had been born, where millions had died. The time was now. The cycles were coming back upon themselves, forces converging, blurring the reality between past and present, and turning, perhaps, violence into life.

  The man’s life song was strong and sang through his bones. The Spelljammer answered with the song of its own, and it knew that their songs must soon be sung together, forever.

  For life.

  — Are you worthy? It sang.

  It sped toward the challenger.

  The ultimate test would now begin.

  Chapter One

  “... Newcomers to the Spelljammer are generally ignored, but for the interest of the populace. There is a noticeable difference, however, when newcomers approach bearing powerful helms.

  “From this we can surmise but two things: The ultimate helms borne to the Spelljammer are like no other, and somehow entice the Spelljammer into aggressive action; or that the Spelljammer, as impossible as it seems, is consciously aware that a new helmsman is approaching and wishes to dispatch him before his arrival, for reasons unknown...”

  M’ndora, elf sorceress, The Book of Lomasun;

  reign of JaykEl.

  The Spelljammer was huge. Even now, at a distance of a few short miles away and closing, the legendary ship blotted out Teldin Moore’s view of the void and filled his mind with a sense of unreality, of wonder beyond imagining, even beyond the dreams of the gods. The towers and turrets on the great ship’s back gleamed dreamlike – nothing he had ever seen or imagined had prepared him for this sight – and he thought he could barely make out tiny black dots standing and moving along railings and in windows, pointing in the nautiloid’s direction.

  A welcoming party, he thought. He clasped his hand tightly around the hilt of his sword. Whether they welcome me with steel or with open arms, I’ll be ready.

  The Broken Sphere was an immeasurable black wall behind the shining spires of the Spelljammer. This close, no details were visible in the surface of the crystalline sphere. The great cracks and jagged holes in the sphere were tens of thousands of miles away, on the other side of the universe, as far as Teldin cared, and the Broken Sphere seemed like nothing more than a shimmering obsidian wall, stretching before him endlessly, reflecting only darkness.

  Between the nautiloid and the sphere hung the Spelljammer.

  He turned at gentle footsteps upon the deck of the Julia. Beside him, Djan Alantri, the half-elf from Crescent, stared toward the legendary vessel and pointed. The first mate’s gray-blue eyes widened with surprise, and his thin blond hair exposed his slightly pointed ears as a gust of cool wind sprang unexpectedly from the bow.

  Teldin looked to where Djan pointed. The shadow of the Spelljammer’s immense tail was slowly shifting across the towers of the city, and Teldin gasped as he realized that the huge ship was beginning a wide turn away from the cracked globe of black crystal, toward the speeding nautiloid.

  Toward them.

  Unconsciously, his cloak billowed out at his unbidden surge of emotion, and he felt the Julia subtly change its course. He had discovered that he need not be seated at the ship’s helm to control its course and speed, and that he could command the vessel without even being on board. But that even his uncontrolled emotions could cause the ship to veer surprised him greatly, especially since the human Corontea was already on the helm. He pulled his cloak around him and mentally straightened the ship’s course so that its bow moved in a slow curve and pointed directly at the bow of the Spelljammer.

  It was as though he could feel the flow of the phlogiston around him, as though he were at one with the universe as his gaze met the blank eyes of the Spelljammer. He shivered unconsciously as words rang through his mind. The words were slow and instinctive, blossoming in his mind, not as a voice, either definably male or female, but as raw thoughts and emotions, of half-dreamed images, yearning. It was a cry of need and loneliness, tremulously touching the core of his being and singing through his blood. He slowly formed the cry into barely adequate words.

  — worthy...

  “Are you worthy?” He said them out loud, slowly, testing the weight of each word.

  He stared at the Spelljammer, his mouth agape. “You,” he said softly. “That was you”

  He laughed once, a bark of triumph, and his laughter was absorbed into the flow.

  The Spelljammer was visibly closer. He imagined he could feel its breath as the ship headed toward him, diving into the flow, pushing a tidal wave of wind before it. The shining towers and buildings upon its great back seemed sharper, in clearer focus. Now he could make out a lone figure standing on a squat, round building in the foreground of the ship. It was only a speck, perhaps moving, perhaps gesturing in the Julia’s direction.

  — Are you worthy?

  The words rang louder in his head as the Spelljammer seemed to come rushing toward him at once, like an unstoppable juggernaut. For an instant, Teldin cocked his head and stared at the monstrous ship. He grasped the rail of the deck and whispered, “Am I worthy?”

  He knew, then, what the ancient Spelljammer was doing.

  “Battle stations!” he screamed.

  The ship came faster, blotting half of the Broken Sphere from his view. Now he could clearly make out the people standing along the railings of the ship’s buildings, in windows; positioned among the buildings that somehow resembled sharp spears more than towers. He could imagine his broken, shattered body inside the Julia, as it hung impaled upon the Spelljammer’s sharpest spre.

  His eyes grew wide and he screamed out, “Evasive action!”

  But the Spelljammer was deaf to his fears. His screams were meaningless, swallowed into the void. Djan shouted behind him, but he could not understand the half-elf’s words.

  The Cloakmaster backed away and stopped against the hatch leading into the depths of the nautiloid. He reached behind him, took hold of the latch, and stared as the Spelljammer loomed closer and closer like a giant, crashing wave. There was nowhere to run. This fate he could not escape. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. The damned ship was too big, unstoppable; he knew that. The powers of his cloak were too limited, too —

  — Are you worthy?

  He shook his head unconsciously. No, he thought, I’ve come this far, and you’re trying to kill me, too —

  — Are you worthy?

  The words were like thunder in his mind, and he shook his head, realizing exactly what had to be done. They could be saved. This quest was not futile.

  They could survive.

  Teldin stepped away from the hatch and shook himself out of his fear. “Yes,” he whispered to himself. He stared down the great ship, at the towers, their sharp points gleaming
fiercely in the fiery light. He shouted into its face, “Yes! Yes! I am worthy!”

  Teldin yelled down into the Julia. “Corontea! Relinquish the helm!” and he braced his legs and stood firmly on the deck. He closed his eyes and reached out with his thoughts. His skin tingled instantly, raising the hairs along his arms and the back of his neck, and he felt the ancient powers of his mysterious cloak spread through him, infusing him with energy.

  He felt it all billowing around him, the flow, the cloak, the untapped pulsations of arcane energies that wove through the cloak like veins. His skin glowed from within as he felt the icy hot powers of the cloak weave around him, a silent cyclone of energy rushing through his body.

  His eyes rolled back, and his vision, his mind, was filled with the sight and sound and feel of the Spelljammer. He felt people scurry across his back as they saw his ship grow closer. He heard blades shoved into scabbards, heard shouts in unhuman tongues spread over the decks. He felt the flow rush around the Spelljammer’s sphere of air. He felt its song ring through each cell of its huge body... and in his own mind.

  At the same time, he was the Julia. He felt the flow rush past the whorls of his hard-bodied shell ship. He felt the nautiloid shudder as he reached out with his mind and plucked the helm away from his helmsman, Corontea, and imagined that both ships were slowing...

  He saw the forward views from both their bows. He was both ships at once, staring down at each other, measuring the too-quickly decreasing space between them.

  He grew calm and closed his eyes. He imagined a whirling ball of air between the two ships, a cyclone of invisible energy, growing, growing, into a storm of power.

  The nautiloid moved on, shifting softly, slowing almost imperceptibly. The Spelljammer, unstoppable, huge, came on, hurtling toward his flimsy ship.

  His cloak, impossibly alive, floated around him, mirroring the manta shape of the Spelljammer. Teldin lifted his arms and felt the power flow through him, channeled into magical energy by his ancient cloak. He visualized the windstorm of invisible energy between the ships, and he willed it to grow larger, stronger, into a cushion of raw force to keep the two craft apart.

  The nautiloid was slowing, buffeted by the cold winds spinning from Teldin’s mind storm; but the Spelljammer was too big, too powerful. Its weight collided with his invisible storm of wind and kept plunging on. He pushed out with his mind, summoning the powers of the cloak and willing the energy storm to withstand the impact. At the same time, he visualized the Julia and shoved it farther away.

  Then he opened his eyes, and the realization hit him without warning. The Spelljammer was alive! This great ship was alive. It was sentient. And it knew him. It was coming for him.

  For him!

  — Are you worthy?

  He wanted to cower, to hide in the protective folds of his cloak and watch as his ship was crushed under the Spelljammer’s enormous mass; but the Spelljammer was too huge, too purposeful. Teldin could feel that its innate sentience kept it single-minded, determined.

  And strong.

  Teldin began to sweat with the strain of keeping the ships apart. The Spelljammer’s strength was too much; still the huge vessel grew closer, blotting the Broken Sphere completely from his view.

  The wedge between the ships grew increasingly small as his own faith ebbed. He heard himself grunting with the immense strain of keeping the ships apart; he saw a human upon a tower, pointing toward him with a sword, and he shook his head like a caged animal, feeling a hidden strength blossoming within him like a radiant flower.

  Live, he thought. I... will... live!

  The Spelljammer hurtled toward him. It dwarfed his tiny ship and threatened to impale the nautiloid upon its spiraled turrets.

  Live!

  At his neck, the ancient amulet began to glow. Cold sparks of energy flickered along its mazelike pattern. The chain burst away from the amulet and fell at his feet, and the bronze disk glowed and burned itself into the clasp of his cloak, welding itself as though it had always belonged there.

  At once, he felt his feet lift from the wooden planks of the deck. His cloak billowed around him like a thing alive as he floated only inches above the doomed ship. He heard the scream of a woman aboard the Spelljammer, the cries of humans running hurriedly away, warning others of the nautiloid’s imminent crash. Beneath him, in the belly of the Julia, he heard the cries of his own crew members as their impending deaths grew near.

  Live!

  He stared down at the Spelljammer and noticed for the first time the great, empty expanse along its closer wing. He closed his eyes. His hands balled into fists. He pulled his arms together across his chest, and imagined himself as a hand, a giant hand of golden energy forming against the black backdrop of the Broken Sphere, pulsing with the limitless power of the cosmos. He willed the hand to ball into a mighty fist, coalescing beneath the starboard wing of the Spelljammer.

  He opened his eyes. His cloak flapped like wings in an invisible windstorm. The amulet blazed at his neck like a miniature sun.

  With one thought, Teldin willed the Spelljammer to bank up at an angle. Instantly, the fist of power swung up and hammered into the great ship’s belly. The Spelljammer shuddered under the impact, the primal force of Teldin’s mind. Its starboard wing tilted up to meet the nautiloid, and Teldin focused on the great empty area along the wing.

  In the instant that the nautiloid was pummeled into splinters by the onslaught of the Spelljammer’s indestructible wing, Teldin felt himself flung away by the limitless powers of the cloak. It wrapped itelf around him in a thick, protective cocoon. Shards of shell and metal and wood shattered around him. Sharp points of debris flung against his cloak as the nautiloid smashed into the wing. The ship almost screamed with the painful groans of metal and wood being ripped apart. The chambered nautiloid blew away like nothing more than ashes, and underneath it all, he could hear only the screams of his terrified crew.

  Then, silence.

  The Cloakmaster tumbled blindly through the air and landed hard on the great ship’s wing. Teldin rolled helplessly as debris from his ship rained upon him. He willed himself to stop, and the cloak shivered, halting his movement. Then he stood on shaky legs, and the cloak unwrapped itself from his body.

  The nautiloid’s remains stretched before him, a road of twisted metal and broken shell across the Spelljammer’s great wing. It was a road he had taken once and could never return along. His fate, his destiny, his future, lay here. He was alive. But his crew lay under the wreckage that had brought them all to their fates, and he turned to shout for help.

  There was a scream. One man – Djan! – kicked his way out from under the heavy debris, pulling a limp body behind him. Teldin rushed to help. Djan and his charge – Corontea, Teldin made out – were thirty feet away from the nautiloid when it ruptured in a great gout of heat and flame, spewing fiery wreckage across the Spelljammer’s wing.

  Spontaneously, the phlogiston that permeated the Spelljammer’s air envelope ignited, and Teldin and Djan and the unconscious Corontea were blasted fifty feet away by the explosion.

  The Cloakmaster pushed himself off the deck as flaming shards fell around him. He covered his head with the Cloak of the First Pilot and rushed to Djan’s side as smaller explosions shuddered around them. He knocked away tiny embers of wood that were sparkling near Djan, and he reached down to help the half-elf pull Corontea away from the flames and to safety.

  “She was crushed under a beam,” Djan said. He turned to stare at the Julia’s blackened remains. The back of his gray clothes were scorched and black. “I – I couldn’t reach anyone else,” he said, panting. He shook his head as though to clear it, but he sagged down onto the deck, and his voice became barely a whisper. “They’re all trapped in there.”

  “Djan, don’t —”

  But the half-elf’s eyes rolled up, and Djan fell into oblivion.

  Teldin placed his fingers upon Djan’s neck. Good – there was still a pulse. He looked up. He could sti
ll make it over to the crash and tear through the wreckage to find the others – there were thirteen other crewmen trapped under thirty-or-so tons of debris. He stood and had time to take just a single step, then he pulled up short at the shrill cry of hatred that emanated behind him, like the chilling howl of a hungry war wolf.

  He spun abruptly. His eyes widened in sudden fear, and he reached for the sword hanging at his waist.

  He cried out, “By the gods!”

  But an adequate defense was too late. The neogi that had crept up behind him, held tight in the arms of its enslaved umber hulk, screamed an ululating cry of death at the Cloakmaster. The misshapen umber hulk, its mandibles clacking in rage, raised its broadsword high above its head and swiftly brought it down, straight down toward the Cloakmaster’s skull.

  Chapter Two

  “... The few scrolls and books that remain from the beginning show that the survivors who sailed the Wanderer were far different from the barbarians I must share the Spelljammer with today. The early sailors cherished life, cherished diversity, and wished for no better life than to explore and bring peace to all peoples.

  “Today the populace lives in fear of unhumans and even their human brethren, and peace is a forgotten word, replaced by the lust for power and the fear that a particular way of life will be threatened from without....”

  Corac, Grandson of Erbur, warrior of Mosabor;

  reign of Rygosa

  The citadel laid out upon the Spelljammer’s broad back rose raggedly at the end of a long landing field, which lay at the ship’s bow. The fore buildings held primarily the Spelljammer’s human population and were devoted to the ship’s politics and social functions. Aft, in the wide shadow of the Spelljammer’s great tail, most of the ship’s unhumans had formed their individual communities: beholders, illithids, dwarves, goblins, ogres, and dracons. Also aft were the buildings of the Long Fangs and the Tenth Pit, dark dens reserved for the foulest sailors upon the Rainbow Ocean.