The Ultimate Helm Page 8

  The cloak billowed around him. The halflings scattered backward from the table, and at once the cloak elongated, reaching out for Kristobar with its edge. The inner lining had turned a deep blue, like the sky at sunset, and suddenly the cloak enveloped the halfling in its folds.

  Teldin’s cloak unfurled, and the halfling was gone.

  ****

  He floated among the stars of wildspace. Below him hung the sun of his home sphere, and he could feel the coldness of space on his bare arms, in the hollows of his bones, chilling him with the emptiness of death and eternity. The stars, cold and piercing, almost close enough to touch, blazed around him, and Kristobar felt that he would float here forever, forgotten, abandoned.

  Loneliness washed over him, and he knew that he was lost.

  He was cold and alone, isolated in his own empty universe. He felt a cold sharper than on the wastes of Artalla, a cold he could imagine was more severe than the embrace of the dark gods themselves.

  Still he was alone. He screamed out his need, his fear, but his voice was plucked away, impotent in the cold emptiness of space.

  Totally... alone...

  ****

  “Where is he?” shouted Hancherback. “Bring him back!”

  Teldin stood silently, as amazed as the others in the room. He closed his eyes and concentrated on Kristobar’s face.

  The cloak swirled around him. The colors inside shifted to a shade more dense than any black those assembled had ever seen. At once, the cloak curled out, and Kristobar was expelled from the dark lining. He huddled in a fetal position on the floor, shivering. “N-n-no one,” he said. “So c-cold..

  He was helped to the table and swaddled in blankets, and the cold inside Teldin’s cloak soon dissipated. Teldin apologized for any inconvenience. “Sometimes it does things on its own,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder exactly who the master really is.”

  “Cloakmaster, CassaRoc,” Diamondtip said finally, “we all have reasons for a strategic alliance.” His voice was a deep rumble tinged with quiet dignity. “I believe you are a man of peace, and, although we must all defend ourselves at times, I think none of us here wants war. We simply want to survive in happiness.

  “You may count on the two dozen warriors of the giff to stand by you when battle calls. Cloakmaster, you have convinced me, at least, with your magic cloak... but especially with the honesty I sense behind the story of your quest, and behind your eyes. My only wish is that your friend, Gomja, could be here to share in our victories. He is a credit to the giff. To fight beside him here would honor me.”

  “Thank you, Lord Hojson,” Teldin said. He looked at the others. “Can we count on your support as well, gentlemen?” Kristobar cast a wary glance at Teldin, then leaned over to Hancherback. They talked among themselves for a moment. Lord Kova took the opportunity to speak. “I have seen enough. The Citadel of Kova will side with the Cloakmaster – though it is still hard for me to believe that the Spelljammer’s captains are not dwarves. I do not know how you know this, but your cloak is powerful, and I feel that destiny is somehow being woven here today, as the threads of your cloak are somehow woven tightly with your own.

  “The dwarves of Kova number three hundred. We will fight by you, Teldin Cloakmaster, or we will die.”

  Firespitter agreed. “We number only about a hundred in the Free Dwarves’ tower, Cloakmaster, but we will gladly fight by your side, for life and for peace throughout the spheres.”

  “Good,” Teldin said. “Excellent.” He faced the halflings. Hancherback stood proudly. “We’re with you, Cloakmaster, all two hundred of us. We’re small, but we’ll give those neogi – and anybody else – a run for their money.”

  Firespitter lifted his ale in a toast. The others rose and lifted their mugs. “To Teldin Cloakmaster,” Firespitter said, “to peace, and to —” he thought, stroking his decorated beard “— to the Alliance of the Cloak!”

  Chapter Six

  “... We are naturally superior. No one shall escape the fury of our righteousness...”

  Beholder mage Kronosh;

  reign of Jos Dragonrider.

  Death came to the minotaur tower quickly and mercilessly.

  The minotaur guard at the tower door was initially shocked to see three of the xenophobic beholders floating past his post. He was even more surprised when one turned toward him and grinned, baring its ugly, misshapen teeth in a feral smile. A small eye on one of its ten eyestalks turned toward the guard. A yellow beam of intense light flared, and instantly the minotaur staggered back, no longer in control of its own mind.

  The beholder turned to its companions. “Our first slave of the war,” it said, laughing.

  They proceeded into the tower stealthily, the enslaved minotaur leading the way through the narrow corridors. At each door, the minotaur would enter and the beholders would charm other minotaurs with beams from their eyes.

  Most of the tower’s forty minotaurs were their slaves by the time the beholders reached the quarters of the minotaur leader, Hammerstun Breakox. One minotaur knocked on the door and said, woodenly, “Lord Breakox, we must speak with you.”

  The answer from inside was swift. “Come!”

  The beholders ordered nine minotaurs to enter and surreptitiously surround their leader.

  Breakox was huge, more than sixteen feet tall – twice as tall as the other minotaurs and four times as fierce. When the minotaurs did not speak, Breakox stood and said, “What is this?”

  The minotaurs were silent.

  In an instant, Breakox knew that something was wrong with his warriors, and he lunged for the mammoth axe that leaned against the wall.

  The minotaurs jumped him. Breakox struggled blindly, kicking with his mighty hooves, crushing a warrior’s nose. But their numbers were too strong. They pinned him to the floor, his huge arms pulled back and held by minotaurs on each side.

  Breakox bellowed loudly for his warriors to attack, but when he heard the beholders laughing coarsely as they entered the room, he knew that the cause was lost, that all of his warriors must be enslaved.

  The three beholders approached. A minotaur pulled back Breakox’s shaggy head so that its masters could fully see the great minotaur’s submission.

  As one, the beholders stared at Breakox with their eyes of charm. Three yellow beams lanced from their deadly eyes.

  Breakox squirmed against the minotaurs who held him. He felt the magic working its way into his eyes. He closed them tightly and screamed defiantly.

  The power of their eye beams flared back toward them. The beholders flinched and floated back, their charm spells ineffective against the minotaur leader. They blinked in pain; no one had ever held his own against even one beholder’s powerful eyes. Beneath them, Breakox laughed. “You will never enslave me, monsters! I will forever be free!”

  The beholders huddled among themselves and whispered together. They parted and approached the captive leader. “You are, perhaps, correct, minotaur. We doubt that you could ever serve the beholder empire in any capacity. Therefore, you must die. Your head will be carried by our armies as a warning to others. In death, you will serve.”

  The beholders focused on a tall minotaur warrior who bore a broken horn. Stiffly, he walked over to Breakox’s great axe and picked it up. Sweat broke out on the minotaur’s snout; Breakox could see that his warrior was struggling to break the beholder’s unhuman control, and, inside, he smiled, for his warriors were courageous, even in defeat.

  The one-horned minotaur gripped the axe with two hands and brought it above his head.

  Breakox struggled suddenly and threw one warrior off his shoulder. The others pounced on him; he could see the horror of what they were doing reflected in their eyes.

  They held him down. His chin was pressed hard against the floor.

  He bellowed, one last scream of hatred and defiance. He could see in the eyes of his minotaurs their great fear, their useless struggle against the beholders’ mind control.

  The great ax
e swung down.

  A beholder gestured a thin eyestalk and ordered a minotaur downstairs. At the base of the tower, the minotaur opened the huge door and allowed Gray Eye to float in, his glimmering ioun stones whirling around his scaly body. Behind him, ShiCaga, the chieftess of the ogres, strode in, towering a good four feet above the minotaurs. An evil smile flickered across her craggy face. “This is good,” she said to Gray Eye. “Very, very good.”

  In the chambers of the slain minotaur leader, ShiCaga and Gray Eye agreed to an unholy alliance. Together, with the combined forces of the ogre and beholder communities – and with their numerous slaves – they would destroy the neogi and mind flayers. And with the ogre chieftess’s sons at the lead of forty ogre warriors, the human forces would later be destroyed – in revenge for the death of ShiCaga’s husband, and to secure the ship’s stores for their unholy alliance.

  Gray Eye wanted something else. He wanted the cloak, and the ogres were just stupid enough to help him take it.

  Then the ship would be his.

  The rasping, sinister laughter of the beholders rang throughout the tower.

  Chapter Seven

  “... I have had visions, mother, visions of worlds beyond this one. I know that I must be hallucinating, or dreaming, but they are so real. I have seen suns born and whole worlds spin on their axes. And I saw a black pearl as it cracked, from the inside out. I do not understand these things, but I know that I must leave here to seek something more, something wondrous, and something that is better than the life I have here...

  Letter to Meranna,

  mother of Jokarin.

  Teldin, CassaRoc, and the giff, dwarf, and halfling leaders talked among themselves for an hour after their agreement to become allies, making broad, preliminary plans for defense and explaining to Teldin the multifaceted – and sometimes highly confusing – political situations aboard the Spelljammer. The ship was more crowded than he had originally thought, holding whole communities of illithids, goblins, neogi, dra-cons, ogres, beholders, elves – it was all too much, and Teldin finally decided that it just did not really matter, as long as he could get the answers he needed.

  Privately Teldin and his allies were all worried that no word had been sent from the elves or the Shou. The Shou were largely unknown to Teldin, but he had had enough untrustworthy dealings with the elves to last him a lifetime, and he decided it would be best to consider them both, for the present, as potential enemies.

  They briefly talked about some of the legends concerning the Spelljammer, in order for Teldin to get an idea of the great ship’s history – what they actually knew of it – and the power structures and hierarchies on board. No one had ever heard of Teldin’s cloak before the beholder myth had started to circulate months earlier. Neither could they elaborate on the Dark Times and what they meant to the ship. “All we know,” Diamondtip explained slowly, “is that the Dark Times herald war for us all. Food will be in short supply, though we don’t really know why. Most of the communities have food supplies and even grow some themselves. Our primary food comes from the Spelljammer’s gardens, and I can think of no reason why that should ever stop. The gardens are open to all, and the harvests are plentiful. We go completely without want.”

  Talk eventually turned from there to the nature of Teldin’s cloak. All, of course, knew of ultimate helms, but they could not be sure of the peculiar qualities the cloak had displayed. “That could be what pulled you out here,” Lord Kova said, stroking his trim beard. “But if the cloak is truly an ultimate helm, it is the strangest helm I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Perhaps it is something special,” said Kristobar Brewdoc. “That would explain why the evil ones consider you dangerous – perhaps it is some kind of device whose magic is uncontrollable, or even limitless. A charm like that could destroy all your enemies.”

  “Aye,” CassaRoc said, “even...” He took a draft of ale. “Even the Fool.”

  “The Fool? Who is that?” Teldin asked.

  “No one,” Brewdoc said hurriedly. “Make-believe, to keep children in line.”

  Hancherback snorted loudly. “Not hardly. He’s real, I tell you, but he is less than human – far less.” He turned to the Cloakmaster. “Evil incarnate, he is. A serpent in the belly of the Spelljammer.”

  “Aye,” Kova said. “We mortals brought the monster to the Spelljammer. And we mortals must destroy it.”

  Firespitter was silent through this, glaring occasionally at Lord Kova. He believed that the Fool was a myth created by the Kovans for some unknown purpose – only the dwarves under Kova would be so stupid as to fashion such a ridiculous bogeyman. A worm. Hah!

  “No one knows who the Fool really is,” Diamondtip said, “or if he really exists. Some say he is the secret captain, some say he was the captain once, now deposed. Others say he is a being formed by the violent deaths of others, a being of soulless energy. Others don’t believe in him at all.”

  A blank look fell across Teldin’s face. There was something there with them, he could feel, something cold and empty gnawing at the pit of his soul.

  CassaRoc was watching him and said, “Teldin, are you all right?”

  Silently Teldin reached across the table and plucked the dagger from CassaRoc’s belt. He held it between his fingers and hefted it, then turned slowly, as if in a trance. In one strong, swift motion, he slung it toward the base of CassaRoc’s bar.

  “What in the name of the gods do you think you’re —” CassaRoc stopped when he saw what Teldin had done. The dagger vibrated, its point embedded in the wood, and a huge black rat was impaled upon the blade. The knife had speared the rat straight through, yet it still squirmed, scrabbling with its sharp claws against the floor and the wooden bar. There was no blood.

  “How?” asked Hancherback.

  “It was already dead,” Teldin said. He pulled the knife from the wood and held up the squirming rat.

  Firespitter said, “Undead?”

  Teldin nodded. His eyes glazed over and he held his hand close to the rat. The amulet at his neck grew warm. “Someone had to control this rat. He sees through their eyes.”

  “Who?” CassaRoc asked.

  Kova answered. “The Fool, that’s who. That’s been a legend, too, that he sees through the eyes of others.”

  “No,” Teldin said. “Only the undead, I think.”

  “It looks as if we’ve got one more enemy than we planned on,” Diamondtip said. “Well, my guns will be ready for him.” Teldin crushed the rat’s head beneath the heel of his boot. Blackness stained the old floor, and the rat died its true, final death. The Fool, Teldin thought. Perhaps the legends about him are true. Teldin nodded. It seems as if the battle lines have been drawn. If I’ve been called here to become the

  Fool’s enemy, then I am right about my quest.

  I’m here to fight for life, and the Fool fights only for death....

  The alliance soon adjourned so that its members could take the news back to their respective communities, and to prepare for the eventual war with the evil unhumans. When the allies were gone, CassaRoc closed the door and pulled Teldin over to the table.

  “I’m weary,” Teldin told the warrior. “I am so tired of fighting and death.”

  “I don’t blame you at all, Teldin. You’ve been through a lot today.”

  Teldin yawned. His eyes felt scratchy, and he rubbed his face to keep himself alert. “It is catching up with me, I think. Still, I feel as though there is much to be done. I couldn’t sleep earlier. I don’t know if I could now.”

  “You look as tired as you sound. Go on to your quarters. You’ll sleep just fine.”

  CassaRoc watched him silently as the Cloakmaster stared away. “There’s just so much to do.”

  “So, what is it with you and that cloak?” CassaRoc asked. “What?”

  “You’re... seeing things, aren’t you? You knew that undead rat was here.”

  Teldin thought. Yes, he had been seeing things and hearing things, and knowing
things that he had no knowledge of before he had landed on the Spelljammer.

  “I’m not sure,” Teldin finally said. “I did know the rat was here, but I’m not sure how.” He thought for a moment. “I think it’s a combination of things. The amulet and the cloak, working together, perhaps. The fact that I’m here on the Spelljammer, where its magic is more powerful, may help. Perhaps the powers of the cloak are getting stronger as well.”

  “Or perhaps you are,” CassaRoc said.

  Teldin nodded. “Yes, you may be right. It may be me, but I don’t know everything about this ship. Actually, I know very little. I don’t think I’ll know everything until I become —”

  He stopped himself. Until I become... what? He did not know, but it was there, flickering like energy through the cloak, through his being. Somewhere inside him, his reason for being here was locked away like an ancient treasure. And the key was somewhere upon the Spelljammer.

  Someone knocked loudly on the door to the meeting hall, then opened it. One of CassaRoc’s warriors, a tall, gangly fighter named Hath, stuck his head in. “CassaRoc, a word with you.” CassaRoc grunted and stepped into the hall. Hath closed the door. Teldin heard voices behind the thick wood, but could not make out any words, then CassaRoc came back in.

  “Teldin, I’m sorry. My man just gave me word that your helmsman —”

  Teldin stood. “Corontea?”

  CassaRoc frowned. He seemed to sag slightly, and he took a deep breath. “Teldin —”

  “Don’t,” Teldin said. “Corontea didn’t make it.”

  The survivors from the crash of the Julia had been sneaked over soon after Teldin and CassaRoc had made their way to the Tower of Thought. At that time, Djan had been administered medicines and healing spells for superficial cuts and bums. The healer had placed a sleep spell on him, to give his injuries time to heal.

  Corontea, however, had been a different matter. The Julia’s female helmsman had far too many internal injuries, and the healers knew that there was nothing they could do for her except relieve her pain.