The Ultimate Helm Read online

  Teldin glanced at CassaRoc. “We intercepted a report from a neogi messenger,” CassaRoc said. “One of their mages had spotted something in the flow. It wasn’t long before our own scouts made out her shape not far off the port bow. We intercepted her before the neogi could, and we took her to the Tower of Thought.” He laughed. “A few of my ales brought her around soon enough.”

  Teldin watched Cwelanas and felt pride, mingling with awe, at her strength during the trials she had lived through. Something nagged at him, though, the sheer coincidence of her reappearance as his quest was coming to an end. Coincidence? he wondered. Cwelanas was stronger than he had ever known, and he knew now that she was supposed to be here, at journey’s end, to help fulfill his still unknown destiny.

  No. It was not coincidence. It was verenthestae.

  He pulled her to him and held her gently in his arms. “I will get you out of this, Cwelanas,” he said. “We will get out of this together.”

  Chaladar again cleared his throat, this time louder. CassaRoc stood. “All right, we get the point, paladin.” To Teldin he said, “Sorry, Cloakmaster, but it looks like your reunion will have to wait. We have to get you out of here. It would be best if we could smuggle you out, but it looks like we’ll have to take our chances outside, and probably make a run for it.” He turned to his companions. “Any ideas?”

  No one answered the warrior. He looked questioningly around the room. Suddenly, the little warrior with the slingshot stepped away from the bar, sloshing his ale onto the floor. His mouth agape, he pointed toward Teldin.

  “Emil?” CassaRoc said. “Emil, are you bewitched, son?”

  Emil blinked and scratched his head. His eyes were wide with confusion. “CassaRoc, sir, look at him. Look!”

  CassaRoc turned and faced Teldin. “What in the name of

  the gods...!”

  The Cloakmaster was standing beside Cwelanas, and as the warriors in the room watched silently, his face shifted its features. He became shorter, thinner, and his apparel changed hues and texture to resemble a plaid cloak and ill-fitting clothes.

  Emil jabbed his finger toward Teldin. “He’s me, sir! He’s j-j-just like me!”

  CassaRoc, suspicious, scrunched up his face and looked Teldin over. “Is this a spell of some kind?” he asked. “Are you a magic-user?”

  Teldin smiled and looked at his now puny body. He had deliberately chosen the least dangerous warrior in the room in order to appear unthreatening. He knew that his shape-shifting ability was sometimes feared, but he hoped that this display would prove his good intentions, his trust in CassaRoc’s people. And he hoped it wasn’t misguided.

  “No, it is not a spell,” Teldin said. “It is merely another property of the cloak. I show this to you to prove my trust, for I am grateful for your rescue today. Now, if your friend Emil here doesn’t mind —”

  “Emil the Fierce!” Emil said, a wide grin on his face. “Oh, I am honored you chose me to imitate, Mr. Cloakmaster, sir. You don’t know what this means to me, you really —”

  CassaRoc quieted him with a gesture. “You’re talking like one of those gnomes, son. Now slow down.”

  “Okay, sir, okay.”

  “Now, Teldin, what do you suggest?”

  Teldin thought for a moment. “It might be best if we stagger this, try not to call attention to ourselves in one large group. Let’s try to get to the tower in threes and fours. I’ll go out as Emil —”

  “Oh, yessir, yessir, you bet, this sure is —”

  Teldin and CassaRoc exchanged a glance. CassaRoc rolled his eyes at Emil and said softly, “Don’t ask.”

  Teldin continued. “I’ll go out in the first group, with you, CassaRoc. A larger group will follow, tightly protecting someone in the middle, someone with my build. Chaladar can lead them, and maybe make those who are watching us believe that I’m with them. Perhaps a little subterfuge will confuse them.”

  “The neogi aren’t that smart,” CassaRoc said.

  Teldin adjusted his cloak, now a duplicate of Emil’s brown, plaid cloak, around his neck and wondered if he looked as ugly as he felt. He turned to Cwelanas. “How do I look?” he asked.

  Cwelanas smiled softly. “It might work, Teldin. You better stay low, though. Even with your cloak concealed, its magic can still be detected.”

  “Rest assured,” Chaladar said, “the scum will be out looking for you.”

  CassaRoc said, “Cwelanas, go on ahead. Let my boys in the Tower of Thought know we’re coming. They’ll be ready for us.”

  Cwelanas nodded sharply and faced Teldin again. She kissed his cheek. Across the room, Emil blushed. “Be careful,” Cwelanas said, and she hurried out the door.

  Mostias murmured to CassaRoc, “Now, about that tab...”

  *****

  Cwelanas reported as she had been told, and the first group from the centaur tower, including the disguised Teldin Moore, made it safely across the great starboard wing of the Spelljammer to rendezvous with three of CassaRoc’s men at the edge of the ship’s long landing field.

  The group crossed in front of the council chambers and entered the great open market beneath the ship’s stores. Here merchants hawked their meager wares and curios; weapons and armor were made and repaired; clothing and footwear were tailored to order.

  The market was neither as extensive nor as bustling as had been most markets Teldin had toured, but it was certainly more friendly than most. At least a half dozen humans waved to him, greeting him as Emil or “little adventurer” – a term Teldin quickly came to despise, and he wondered just how Emil could put up with it. But, knowing Emil, he mused, how could they put up with him?

  Then he remembered how valiantly Emil had fought against the neogi, and he realized that, though Emil’s body was small, his courage and honor more than made up for it.

  The band of warriors passed a booth full of charms and crystals. The men hardly noticed an old woman sitting in the stall who gasped as they walked by. They did not know that Teldin had been spotted, and quite easily, at that; the magical qualities emanating invisibly from his cloak had been detected by the old woman, who had seen the cloak’s energies fanning out behind him in the shape of a great manta, glowing with all the colors of the spectrum.

  As Teldin’s company left the market and headed straight for the Tower of Thought, Teldin was also identified by an elf loitering near a stall that sold exotic desserts. “Did you see that?” the elf said. The shopkeeper, a stout man used to eating a large percentage of his own wares, twisted his fat bulk out of the booth to watch the warriors turn toward the tower. “What? I don’t see anything.”

  The thief ran off with an armful of pastries and sweets, and he headed straight for his quarters at the Elven High Command. It’s true. It’s true! he thought. The Cloakmaster legend is true! The Dark Times are almost upon us! The elf knew he had to report to Lothian Stardawn that he had seen the one called the Cloakmaster enter CassaRoc’s tower, and that the stories about the cloak were true: for with a simple magical charm that he had stolen from his grandmother two decades earlier, the elven thief had seen a cape of energy swirling around Teldin Moore as though it were a thing alive.

  Oblivious to all this, Teldin paused as CassaRoc opened the great door to the Tower of Thought and invited him in.

  The thick door closed behind the party, and CassaRoc led them all up to a great dining area, where most of CassaRoc’s fifty men waited for their leader. As they entered, the group clapped him on the back, while Teldin strayed around the room, secure in his disguise. He found Cwelanas at the bar, and he sidled up to her. “So far, so good,” he whispered.

  “That’s what you think,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were spotted out there by someone,” Cwelanas said. “Count on it. If you weren’t seen by a neogi mage, or a beholder, then someone else with magical abilities found you out.”

  “Perhaps... an elf?” Teldin asked, instantly suspicious.

  Cwel
anas glanced up. For a moment, she appeared almost sad. “Perhaps.”

  “I’ll be on my guard.”

  CassaRoc came over and pulled Teldin an ale from a long line of taps behind the bar. He sipped at it until the larger group finally came in, led by Chaladar. Emil had been kept hidden tightly in the center.

  When Emil was revealed, the disbelieving humans stared between him and Teldin. Finally, Teldin imagined himself wearing his own features, his own musculature, and his own clothes. His body seemed to grow warm, tingling with energy, and he heard the warriors gasping and talking among themselves as his features reshaped into his own natural appearance. The plaid cloak metamorphosed into a dark band at his throat, clasped in front by his amulet, which had shrunk to the size of a coin.

  There was silence for a moment, until Emil said, “Boy, that sure was something, Mr. Moore, sir. I sure would be honored to help you out even more – hah! more, get it, sir? hah! – you just let me know if I can help you out at all, Mr. Cloakmaster, sir —”

  Teldin patted him on the shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, Emil —”

  “Emil the Fierce!” Emil said.

  Teldin smiled. “Yes, yes. Thanks.”

  CassaRoc stood up on a table in the center of the room and motioned Teldin to come over. He looked down at all his warriors and nodded appreciatively.

  “Fellows of the Pragmatic Order of Thought,” CassaRoc began, “we have a very important guest with us – more important than even he knows, I think. This is Teldin Moore. He’s come a long way to rendezvous with the Spelljammer. And he’s not a mage or anything like that. He’s the one we’ve heard all the rumors about. He’s the Cloakmaster.”

  The crowd turned toward Teldin, who really did not know what to say. He had not expected a reception such as this, nor a formal introduction to the Human Collective by its leader.

  “I know, it’s hard to believe, but you all saw it here, and the ancient rumors about the cloak are true. And with it, Teldin here saved my life and routed the cursed neogi.”

  CassaRoc paused for effect. “Now, I think the Spelljammer is at a turning point, and I think things are going to be a lot different now that Teldin is on board. Chaladar and I have talked about this a lot, lately, once we all heard the rumors. And we’re pretty much agreed: Teldin here is the Cloakmaster, and it is his destiny to be here with us, whether we like it or not.

  “We’ve all heard the legends of the Dark Times. Now, it seems to me that if the legend of the Cloakmaster is true, then the legend of the Dark Times is probably true as well.

  “But we are humans, here, and Teldin is one of us. His cloak has brought him here for a purpose, whatever that purpose may be. I, for one, think we have to stand behind him. Now, I’ll let him speak to you, and you can judge for yourselves the truth of his words.”

  CassaRoc climbed down and placed his hand on Teldin’s shoulder. “Go ahead, boy. Don’t you worry. They’re good people.” He left and walked around to the bar.

  “CassaRoc is very kind,” Teldin stammered. “Honestly, I don’t know what all this means. I don’t know anything about the Dark Times. I don’t even know what they are.”

  As he spoke, his confidence grew and his voice became stronger. “Please don’t think that I’ve come here to do you harm. I’ve been trying to reach the Spelljammer for a very long time – it seems like forever. I always thought I’d been called out here for a reason. I thought at first that it was the curse of my cloak, but now I think maybe it’s more than that.” The words came easily, and he knew that these thoughts were honest, things he had been considering for a long time.

  “I’m here for some great purpose, whatever that is. And so, I think, is the Spelljammer itself. I have been called across the spheres for a reason. I have a lot of enemies who want my cloak – neogi, illithids, even elves —” He glanced at Cwelanas, who smiled thinly at him. “And I believe they want this so they can somehow control the Spelljammer and make it a force of evil across the spheres.”

  This gained Chaladar’s full attention. The paladin stood up straight and focused his gaze on Teldin. The zeal for punishing evil was strong in Chaladar, and he would do anything to thwart the plans of those who dared to embrace chaos.

  “I won’t allow this,” Teldin proclaimed.

  Chaladar agreed loudly, shouting, “Go on, Cloakmaster.”

  Teldin looked out into the warriors’ eyes and realized they were listening to him. Their trust was incomplete, he knew; he could see that in some of their expressions. He knew he had to prove himself to them, as he had already proved himself to CassaRoc, and now Chaladar. “If I am here for a reason, somehow bound together with this cloak and with the Spelljammer, then it is a purpose for good, not evil. It is a purpose for life, and for honor – not conquest and death.”

  The warriors began murmuring their agreement. The dark band at his throat began to grow warm, but he did not notice.

  “I will need your help. If my enemies – our enemies – want this cloak, then that means they want me. That means that we’ll have a fight on our hands, another fight to the death, probably, but a fight for good, a battle for the Spelljammer’s destiny. There is a war raging right now, perhaps a second Unhuman War. When this is over on the Spelljammer, maybe we will all be able to live in peace and explore the universe, without fear of dark magic and unhuman enemies. But I’ll need your help.”

  The crowd was silent, staring at Teldin. Chaladar came up and said quietly, “Teldin, your cloak.”

  Teldin looked down. On its own, the cloak had unfurled and grown, softly flaring out behind him in the approximate shape of the Spelljammer. Its colors flared brightly, seemingly infused with the energies of the flow, and, as he watched, the inner lining grew dark and the light of stars appeared within, as though the cloak were a vista upon some distant wildspace.

  Chaladar said, “I told Teldin that I believed he could unite the collective into a force for good. I now believe that was his destiny all along. Teldin Moore... Cloakmaster... I will be honored to stand with you – and all the warriors of the Chalice tower will stand with you as well.”

  CassaRoc’s warriors shouted agreement with the grand knight. From the bar, CassaRoc shouted, “And we’re with you as well, Teldin. Aren’t we, lads?”

  At that, all the warriors in the room cheered. Teldin looked upon them and smiled, at CassaRoc, at Chaladar, at Emil and Cwelanas. But there was a frown on her face, and before he could question it, hands were reaching for him, clapping his back, shaking his hand. From around the room he heard cries of “To Teldin Cloakmaster!” Toasts were made, and the warriors introduced themselves for so long that, by the end, he could remember only a handful of their names. His doubts slowly drowned in an overwhelming sea of friendship.

  Through it all, no one noticed a small, dark shape crawling on the floor, poking its black, furred snout from around the bar. No one noticed its faint sweet smell, the stench of something long dead.

  And no one noticed its white, burning eyes.

  *****

  There was no warmth, no friendship, in the oppressive silence that lay deep within the secret warrens that veined the mighty Spelljammer. The dark world hidden beneath the citadel, the tunnels that stretched mazelike from tip to tip throughout the Spelljammer’s body, were cold and reeked with the stench of ancient evil. Only the dead and the undead walked in the warrens. Silence was spoken here, broken only by the shudder of a death rattle, the screams of souls, the whisper of black winds from the worlds beyond the grave.

  The tunnels wove unevenly through the Spelljammer, ending at only a few points with concealed entrances at the lowest levels of the citadel. Where the living made their homes above, in chambers of light and air, surrounded by mementoes of their accomplishments and the items they needed to live happily among their brothers, the undead of the warrens lay quietly in nests of dry straw, moldy furs, and torn tapestries. Their existence was one of unquiet hatred, existing against their wills between the planes of ligh
t and dark, in lairs where the endless warrens intersected or widened enough to afford room for nests.

  The dead enjoy their own company.

  In one dark, secret lair, hidden deep within the ship so that even the Spelljammer’s magic could not detect his evil, exiled to a chamber carpeted with spongy layers of black mold, hung with fineries of moss and green fungi, and furnished with the bones of the long dead, the Fool watched.

  His eye sockets were black pits of darkness burning deep inside with bright pinpoints of silver light. He watched through the eyes of his undead vermin as the warriors far above, in the Tower of Thought, surrounded the Cloakmaster and accepted him as one of them.

  The Fool rose from his throne, a bleached chair formed from the spines of orcs and the skulls of elves, and he paced the chamber. Where he walked, cold black smoke rose from his footprints.

  His gray skin was shrunken, pulled tightly, like parchment, across his undead bones. His eyes glared fiercely, and his skull-like face was contorted in an eternal rictus of hatred. His long, skeletal fingers absently rubbed the length of a crimson amulet at his neck, and the long, rectangular crystal swirled with an unnatural, inner fire.

  Long ago his name had been Romar. Now he was simply the Fool. A library of legends had grown around him over the decades. Some believed he was merely a zombie. Some believed he was a skeletal worm that fed on the heart of the Spelljammer. Others believed he was the Spelljammer’s secret captain. Few had ever seen him; most believed he was a myth, a shadow creature used to scare children.

  But the few who had had dealings with the Fool were never the same again. Master Coh believed the Fool was an ally – Hah! The neogi had much to learn, and would learn it soon. The Fool brooked friendship with no one and was ally only to the dark gods. Coh was not a master, but a puppet.

  The Fool laughed. He was not called “the Fool” because he was stupid, like his “allies,” but because he had fooled everyone – even the Spelljammer itself – about his secret existence within the ship’s warrens.