The Ultimate Helm tcc-6

by Russ T. Howard

  Tfrespaakiil 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 rfeespaakiil 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 tivisted around corners, 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 neu? 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 torn and rotting tapestries, the ob
vious 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 brought 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…"

  Scrying log of Sunholder, elf mage; reign of Dwir.

  The slim, curved blade was a flash of cruel light as it arced toward his chest. Teldin had just enough time to shout "No!" when a gray blur whizzed between them and struck Cwe-lanas's arm with a loud crack. The elf cried out as the dagger was slung against the wall.

  The gray shield rang sharply against the stone wall and clattered to the floor. Na'Shee ran past Teldin and took up her shield, then slipped the elf s dagger into her belt. "How…?" Teldin asked her.

  "It's broken," Na'Shee said to Teldin. Cwelanas was gripping her wrist, and blood oozed between her fingers. "She won't be killing anybody for a while." The female warrior pressed Cwelanas against the wall with one foot, and the elf moaned in pain. Na'Shee drew her short sword and pressed the tip of the blade against the elf's throat. "We better get CassaRoc," Na'Shee said, and she shouted down the corridor. "What are you doing here?" Teldin asked. "CassaRoc is no fool. You have too many enemies on this ship," the warrior woman said. "He's assigned you guards for as long as you're with us." She stepped back and called again for more guards. Within a minute, Teldin heard the rumble of feet rushing up the tower stairs, then CassaRoc was there, panting. His eyes were half closed; Teldin could tell he had been sleeping.

  CassaRoc nodded once at Na'Shee. "What happened?"

  Na'Shee adjusted the shield on her arm. "She wanted to see Teldin. I was stationed at the end of the corridor, and I let her pass, since I knew they were friends. I heard his door open, but I never heard her knock first. So I came up and watched from around the corner of the stairs. I heard Teldin call out a name, and she came running out. She started crying outside the door when Teldin came out. She turned around, and her eyes were… crazed, possessed. She pulled out a dagger and went for him." Na'Shee grinned an angry, righteous smile. "I took care of her."

  CassaRoc smiled. "Good work. I knew this would happen. Didn't think it would be so soon, though." He turned to Teldin. "Are you hurt?"

  Teldin shook his head. He could not take his gaze from Cwelanas. She sat huddled on the floor, crying, rubbing her shattered wrist. Her eyes looked hollow, fixed on some point in oblivion that only she could see.

  CassaRoc's warriors lifted her from the floor and tightly gripped her arms. "We'll lock her up, you can count on that," CassaRoc said.

  Teldin went to her. Her eyes were empty, she could not see him, but focused instead on some point behind him, or somewhere else in her mind.

  "Cwelanas…" he said.

  He grasped her shoulders and tightened his grip. "Cwelanas, why?"

  She blinked and slowly moved her head around, as though she were just awakening. Her eyes met Teldin's. At first, they were blank with incomprehension; to Teldin, it looked as though she recognized no one around her, even him. Then her eyes widened as she focused on his face. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, then she thrashed violently against her guards and pulled her good arm away. Her arm went up, her fist clutching an imaginary dagger, and over and over she brought the dagger down into Teldin's chest, moaning, "Teldin, Teldin… I love.. no, Teldin- Noooo!"

  She screamed as though the agony of killing Teldin was more than she could bear. The Cloakmaster grabbed her wrist and held her hand to her side. She screamed again and struggled hard against the guards. Na'Shee grabbed her from behind, pulling Cwelanas's shirt tightly against her body. The material stretched and exposed her flesh. The top button snapped off, pinging as it hit the floor.

  Teldin, curious, stared at Cwelanas. "Stop her," he ordered the guards. "Hold her still."

  The guards clutched her tightly, and slowly her fighting subsided. He came forward and lifted her tear-streaked face in his hand. "Teldin," she said unconsciously. She did not see him or anyone else; she was alone and adrift in the empty world of her mind. "Teldin…"

  He reached up and gently pulled aside the collar of her shirt. He took a deep breath. "What is it?" CassaRoc asked. "Come look."

  The warrior craned his neck forward. Above Cwelanas's right breast a spiked, colorful symbol had been tattooed. "Recognize it?" asked CassaRoc.

  Teldin
nodded slowly. To the guards he said, "Take her somewhere safe and have the healers examine her wrist." To CassaRoc he said, "You have a wizard? Clerics?"

  He nodded. "Leoster. We can get King Leoster to come from the Guild tower. But what is it? What does that mean?"

  "She has been bewitched somehow," Teldin said. "She tried to kill me, but she didn't want to. Someone has forced her." He gestured, and the guards took Cwelanas down the hall toward a cell. Teldin turned, his face grim.

  "It's a mark of bondage," the Cloakmaster said. "I've seen something like it before… on the slaves of the neogi."

  Cwelanas was taken to a spare room, and guards were placed on her door. A healer tended her broken wrist with bandages and strong spells, while CassaRoc, in the absence of clerics who could help, sent immediately for His Royal Majesty, the Puissant and Sage Leoster IV, also known as the Silver Lion to his community in the Guild tower. "Leoster is the best," CassaRoc told Teldin as they closed Cwelanas in the room. "If he cannot save her, then she cannot be saved."

  Within half an hour, Leoster came. The king of the Guild tower was little more than a frail old man whose life, like those of the Guild's other nobles, revolved around wizardry and hobbies. Leoster's was a large coin collection, which spanned the riches of the spheres.

  But he was still a king and still a mage of considerable power, and CassaRoc knew that if Cwelanas could be cured of her mind control and an explanation discovered, Leoster was the wizard to do just that.

  With his urns and potions, Leoster set to work. Cwelanas was pale and feverish, muttering incomprehensible sentences in her delirium, when Teldin and CassaRoc adjourned to the common room. The mage told them he needed time to work the poisons out of her. Poisons, Teldin thought. Killing.

  "Everyone wants the Spelljammer*. Everyone wants this damned cloak! And everyone wants to kill me because of some ancient legend I have never even heard of!" Teldin slammed his fist on the table. CassaRoc's tankard of ale shuddered, spilling over the rim. "When is it going to stop?"