The Ultimate Helm Read online

  CassaRoc sighed. “I’m sorry, son. My healers tried everything, but they claim she was hurt too badly. One healer would cast a spell and heal one wound, and it seems like another injury would pop up. There was nothing they could do except ease the pain. They cast a spell of numbness over her. She died in peace, at least.”

  “At peace,” Teldin said. He scowled. “She died because of me.” Teldin shook his head at the irony. “Sixteen other people on board the Julia, and only two survive, all because of me.” He looked up. “What about Djan?”

  CassaRoc shrugged. “Same as before. He’ll be fine tomorrow, they say. My healer does wonders with burn salves and poultices.”

  “Good.” Teldin pulled his cloak around him. “I think I’ll head to my quarters soon. I’m going to stop in on Djan first, and see how he’s feeling.”

  CassaRoc smiled. “Good man. Sleep well, Teldin. You need a good night’s sleep after all you’ve been through.”

  Teldin left the meeting room as CassaRoc joined his band of warriors in drinks. He climbed the tower stairs to Djan’s tiny room, which seemed only slightly larger than a storage closet and held only a narrow bunk and a small table, where half-empty vials of potions and creams had been left by CassaRoc’s healers. Dim light from the phlogiston was the room’s only illumination, glowing through a small window in one wall.

  Teldin could see that his half-elf friend was in pain. Sweat beaded across Djan’s pale brow, and his sheets, tangled uncomfortably around his body, were stained with sweat.

  Teldin drew the sheets free and pulled them carefully up to Djan’s neck. His friend’s eyes flickered as Teldin bent over him, then slowly opened. “Teldin...” he whispered.

  “I’m here.”

  “How... the crash...”

  “Don’t talk now,” Teldin said. “We survived, and the healers say you’re going to be fine by tomorrow. You’ll be a little stiff, but you’ll be up and fighting.” He smiled, hoping that his friend would not see through his bravado.

  Djan’s eyes closed. Teldin thought he had gone to sleep again, but suddenly Djan’s eyes snapped open again.

  He whispered, “Corontea...?”

  Teldin turned away. Djan and Corontea had become close friends on the journey to the Broken Sphere, and he did not want to hurt Djan again with news of Corontea’s death. “The healers say you have to sleep. That’s the only way these potions will work. That’s an order, first mate. Now, you have to rest.”

  Djan grabbed Teldin’s arm. The grip was weak, and his normally pale flesh seemed white, almost translucent. Teldin looked down. Their eyes met for a moment, then Djan’s face seemed to sag, as though in defeat, and the half-elf aimed away.

  Teldin felt he could say nothing. They sat in silence until Djan said softly, “I heard the guards as I was brought here.”

  Teldin watched him.

  “Our coming was foretold. The Cloakmaster.”

  “I’ve heard it,” Teldin said. “Now, get to —”

  “They said, ‘The Cloakmaster brings death. The legends of

  the beholders are true.’”

  The Cloakmaster placed his hand on his friend’s. “Never place much faith in legends. People have a tendency of making their own fears come true.”

  Djan faced him with teary eyes. “I don’t listen to legends such as that. It is the fact they knew you were coming. The Cloakmaster. And coming for a reason.”

  “And?”

  “Teldin. Can’t you feel it? This is your destiny. This is your purpose. We are supposed to be here. Verenthestae.”

  Djan’s eyes flickered shut, and Teldin sat on the edge of the bed as Djan fell asleep. He then rose and opened the door. In the light angling from the corridor, he saw Djan’s chest rising evenly in peaceful sleep.

  Teldin closed the door. “Damn,” he said. “Damn.”

  He climbed the tower steps to his meager quarters, where he commanded his cloak to shrink to a thin necklace, and he removed his clothes and prepared for bed. CassaRoc was right. The day had been damned hard and exceedingly strange. His quest had taken him farther than he had ever expected, and it had forced him to grow in directions that had before seemed inconceivable.

  He lay across his bunk and pulled a light blanket over him. The glimmer from the phlogiston flickered through his single small porthole, across the opposite wall. It was just dim enough to let him fall asleep quickly and easily.

  *****

  He was standing, naked, looking down at the bunk, where his body lay sleeping. He saw the line of the cloak wrapped at the base of his neck, the amulet a dark talisman below that.

  The amulet.

  He realized that his chest was glowing, and he looked down at his astral body. The outline of the amulet, pulsating with golden light, was imprinted on his chest. The three-pointed symbol burned coldly and flickered against the darker image of the amulet’s mysterious pattern, woven like veins across Teldin’s ethereal flesh.

  His dream self traced one of the lines of the amulet, and he heard the Spelljammer’s voice in his head, a high, keening song that echoed with immense age, immense sorrow.

  His quarters disappeared from around him. He was floating in the cold blackness of wildspace, in a sphere he had never before seen. Here the stars burned with their own inner fires around the circumference of the sphere, and he could feel the eighteen planets lazily circling the huge yellow star at the center.

  — Aeyenna.

  He knew the star’s name as though he had been born there, and he knew that he was looking untold millennia into the past, at the One Egg, the Cosmic Egg, the Broken Sphere.

  — Ouiyan.

  He laughed out loud; he could feel the echoes of his own voice, laughing in his sleep, somewhere in a bunk yet to be dreamed of. He laughed, for the wildspace of the sphere known long ago as Ouiyan was filled with a million swimmers, singing high, sweet songs of peace and freedom. Teldin swam among them, pushing himself through space with his small wings, and he knew he was one with them, seeing through their eyes.

  The spaakiil migrated from planet to planet, star to star, living in harmony with the humans and other creatures inhabiting the planets below. The manta race was looked upon as something holy, and their sentience was revered among the people of Ouiyan, who respected the swimmers’ intelligence and their simple philosophy of benevolence and love.

  Then a great shadow fell across the worlds and the spaakiil scattered across the sphere in horror. He felt their terror screaming through his bones as, one by one, his brethren were butchered, and the peoples of Ouiyan were decimated by forces they could not understand.

  The spaakiil met together between the stars. A fleet of ships sailed with them, and in a thunderous explosion of unharnessed, magical energy...

  Someone called him. The amulet shone at his neck, calling...

  He was running. The floor was the maze engraved in the amulet, and he twisted around comers, following the narrow walls and the fleeting shadow that hovered just out of his vision.

  Teldin!

  He stopped suddenly. Cwelanas stood nude before him. She was radiant, her silver hair flowing down her shoulders. She beckoned to him. He took one step – Teldin! – and stopped.

  Cwelanas came to him, reached for him with one soft hand, and ran a finger down his chest.

  Her hair caught fire. Her finger glowed where she touched the sigil imprinted on his chest, and her face, her body, was seared away in a blast of light.

  Then it was Gaye standing before him, the kender who loved him, whom he had left with the fal One Six Nine millions of miles away. She glowed with an inner fire, like a being of raw power. Her dark eyes danced with golden fire, and her youthful appearance seemed infused with a new awareness, one of newly found purpose. Her long black hair swam around her head as though it were alive, and her robes, tied at her waist with a belt woven with golden symbols, flowed about her.

  His love for her washed over him in a warm embrace, and he saw for the first time how
much she resembled Cwelanas. Then she spoke, but her words were distant, a whisper on the winds of dream.

  He cocked his head. Gaye shouted, but the dream wind scattered her words as though they were pieces of broken feathers.

  She floated before him and stretched out her hand. She placed her palm upon the design on his chest, and he heard her words in his head, though she did not speak.

  Three things you must understand, Cloakmaster, three things that I cannot explain.

  The closest are not what they seem.

  Follow the woven heart.

  The mark will show the trust.

  Then Gaye faded from his view, a beatific smile lit like fire behind her eyes. He called out for her, reached out to her with his strong, bare arms, but she was gone.

  *****

  He was awake then, alone in his bunk in the Tower of Thought. Gaye’s name was but an echo in his ears.

  In the dim light from the flow, he climbed out of bed and dipped his hands in a water basin and splashed away the cold sweat that had formed on his face and neck. The water trickled down his chest, and he touched his skin, looking for the mark that had burned there in the dream.

  She had been so close, and Teldin had no idea what the dream was all about, why he had seen Gaye so clearly, so differently. She had changed, he saw, if that was really she who had come to him. He shook his head. No, it was a stupid dream. Gaye was long gone, just a kender, a friend. She did not have the power to travel through the realm of dream.

  He could feel he was still weary from the day’s adventures, but he had been asleep for four or five hours – usually enough for him. It was probably almost day watch on the great ship, anyway, and he was sure he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. He felt anxious and suddenly wanted to get out of his room and explore.

  He turned and reached for his clothes, and he noticed that his door was open, just a crack. He pulled on his pants and reached for his short sword.

  Slowly, he pulled open the door.

  It was Cwelanas. She faced away from the door, her back to him. She was weeping into her hand.

  “Cwelanas?” he said.

  She shook her head. “I heard you call out —”

  And Teldin realized she must have heard him call for Gaye while he had been dreaming. He smiled and turned around, tossing his sword across his bed. He reached forward to take her in his arms. “Cwelanas, I was just dreaming —”

  She turned. Her eyes were wide and crazed, rimmed with red. Tears streamed down her face. Her mouth was contorted in a grotesque expression of inner agony, and she jerked her hand out from underneath her dark cloak.

  Something glimmered in her hand. Her knuckles were white and taut, her fingers tightly gripped around a wicked, snakelike dagger. Her lips quivered with terror. She raised the weapon above her head. “I – I love you, Teldin!” she screamed. “I love you!” And she swung the silver point down toward Teldin’s heart.

  Chapter Eight

  “... There is justice in the fact that the Cloak, portent of evil to many races across the spheres, invariably brings destruction only to those who deserve it...

  Linedozer, mage,

  XXVII Scroll of Richmon

  The woman who stood proudly inside the entrance to the beholder ruins was beautiful by human standards. She was tall and muscular, and her deep red hair cascaded like a river over her shoulders and shone crimson in the dim light of the ruins’ faltering light panels. The patch over her left eye added an exotic quality to her lean face, and the sharp silver symbol in its center gleamed like a polished blade.

  A beholder of a lower caste floated toward her. Four tiny eyes, unblinking, stared at her. “Lord Gray Eye will see you now,” it said, and it led her toward the leader’s chamber. On the way, they passed minotaur guards, positioned at doorways and carrying out orders for their new masters.

  Selura Killcrow smiled. She could feel the excitement of the upcoming war already vibrating in her bones, and she licked her ruby lips in anticipation.

  The beholder stopped beside a great door and motioned with an eyestalk. The minotaur guard opened the door, and Selura stepped in.

  The eye tyrant floated leisurely above his dais, his ioun crystals slowly orbiting around him. Gray Eye smiled. A line of blood oozed from between his sharp teeth, and Selura saw the spattered mess of raw meat that the beholder was eating from a large plate beneath it. Large rib bones poked out, dripping with dark blood.

  “Ahh,” Gray Eye said. Its voice was low, emanating scratchily. “Welcome to the once proud Kingdom of the Beholders,” the great eye said. “The once proud, and soon to be proud again.” The creature laughed, and its laughter was the coarse sound of grinding bones.

  Selura forced a smile and approached. The stench of the raw meat was overpowering, and she wondered how long it had sat rotting. “I see you have done well in your first conquest,” she said. “Congratulations.”

  The beholder dismissed her. “Bah. We should have done it years ago. They’re so simple. Minotaurs. Stupid, ugly creatures.”

  “But good slaves,” Selura offered.

  “Excellent,” Gray Eye agreed. He gestured to the plate below him. “Better meat.” He laughed.

  Selura suppressed a shudder. As leader of the Long Fangs and the proprietor of the Sharptooth Common Room, she had to deal with the vilest members of all the Spelljammer’s races. The eye tyrant was no less and no greater an evil than anyone else who patronized her tavern; but the sight of the rancid meat, and its stench, curdled her stomach, and she wondered what type of being could willingly, happily eat that.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought. He’ll be dead soon. They’ll all be dead.

  “What do you want, human?” Gray Eye asked abruptly. A huge piece of meat hung from between two ragged teeth.

  “I have something I think you might want,” she said.

  The beholder’s tongue flicked out and sucked the chunk of meat back into its mouth. “What might you possibly have that would be of interest to the beholders?” he said around the flesh in his mouth.

  Selura walked slowly around the room, pretending to admire the tom and rotting tapestries, the obvious signs of violence and war that scarred the chamber. Gray Eye watched her, then sighed. “Enough theatrics, woman. What do you have?”

  Selura fingered a faded, ancient tapestry depicting a victory of the beholders in a battle on Legadda, a planet located in Icespace. She knew nothing of its history, nor of the crystal sphere in which the original battle had taken place.

  “Ruins,” she said to the beholder. “Everything here is in ruins.”

  Gray Eye grunted. “You speak the obvious, human.” His voice was like the crunch of gravel. “What are you getting at?”

  She smiled a seductive human smile, one that had sent men willingly to their deaths, and hoped it would work on the beholder. “Revenge, Gray Eye. You want revenge.”

  The beholder watched her with its large, milky eye. “So. You want to sell me revenge. For what?”

  “Revenge,” she said sweetly, “for the Blinding Rot.”

  Gray Eye floated silently. All his eyes turned to watch Selura.

  Yes, he wanted revenge. They all wanted revenge. The onslaught of the Blinding Rot had decimated the beholder population on board the Spelljammer years ago. There had been more than a hundred of them; they had been the most powerful nation aboard the great ship, stronger than even the elves. Then the disease had come: the Blinding Rot.

  One by one, the beholders’ eyestalks withered, then fell off like dried twigs. Death followed soon thereafter, either naturally, or at another beholder’s eyes.

  The xenophobic beholders hated differences in their race and despised deformities so much that they would kill. After the Blinding Rot had destroyed half the population on the Spelljammer, most of the handicapped survivors were slaughtered by their brethren, for fear of the Rot and for hatred of the unfit. A handful survived, mostly on hatred and dreams of revenge against those who had b
rought this doom to their race.

  And, of course, there were the... unspeakables...

  Until now, they had only suspicions about who had infected the race with the Rot. Now an opportunity for blood revenge was at hand.

  “You have proof?” Gray Eye asked.

  Selura nodded.

  “What do you want?”

  “Only one thing,” she said. “Your word that the beholder nation will not harm the Long Fangs in any way during the coming war. You will leave us alone, in peace.”

  Gray Eye considered. “That can be done,” he said. “It is agreed. Tell me.”

  She approached the dais and said softly, “The neogi.”

  The large, milky eye glared at her. “The neogi. We have long suspected that. What proof do you have?”

  “A renegade neogi is with us at the Long Fangs’ tower. He admitted the neogi plot to a confederate of mine not long ago.”

  “The neogi...” Gray Eye said. “How?”

  “They infected a small portion of your food. The Rot was so contagious that it took only a few days to pass among you. By the time you learned of it, it was already too late.”

  Gray Eye nodded his huge body. “There shall be a truce between us during the war for the Spelljammer. The neogi bastards will be ours.” He smiled. Light flickered off the shards that were his teeth.

  Later, outside, in the warm light of the flow, Selura breathed deeply and relaxed. That went well, she thought. That went perfectly.

  Soon war will break throughout the ship, and in all the chaos and lovely death, the Long Fangs will remain untouched. The fighting will be over, and the other forces will be ravaged when we finally reveal ourselves.

  The ship will easily belong to the Long Fangs.

  To me.

  Chapter Nine

  “... None shall be untouched by violence. The coming of the Cloakmaster shall end the cycle began by Egrestarrian, continued by Drestarin, Wrycanion, Ysaallian, Trisilliar, and the others. The end shall belong only to Creannon – the Spelljammer – and the end, as foretold, shall herald a new beginning, and a new birth, and life shall be as it always was....”