The Ultimate Helm tcc-6

by Russ T. Howard

  Prince Arastor of the Human Collective, The White Book of Knowledge, reign of Brother Darke.

  The undead neogi glared at Teldin with its black, empty eyes. Pinpricks of bright light shone from deep in its sockets- the Fool's eyes, Teldin knew. The neogi bared its needle-sharp teeth and waded through the undead rats toward the Cloakmaster.

  Teldin raised his sword. Rats snapped at his boots as he leaped from the bar, diving for the neogi.

  The neogi snarled as Teldin fell full upon it. They went down together, into the onrush of rats. Teldin wrapped his legs around the neogi's bulbous torso and held back its snapping face with his forearm. His sword plunged deep into its round belly. Black blood gushed from the wound.

  The rats around them scratched at Teldin's face and arms, gnashing their yellow teeth. He winced as he felt long fangs sink into his thigh, others in the back of his leg.

  The neogi rolled through the rats, trying to shake Teldin off. His grip on it was tight. His sword slashed down and down, countless times into the fat, undead flesh, and the neogi still snapped at Teldin's face and neck, seeking his warm blood. Teldin felt the sting of rat bites across his legs, across his arms, and several in his sides. His blood was warm and sticky, oozing from dozens of small wounds, and he could tell that the scent of his blood was driving the undead rats into a frenzy of hunger.

  Teldin pressed hard against the neogi's neck, bending back its head. He kicked out with his bloody legs, feeling his feet sink deep into its coid flesh. With one mighty lunge, a bone in its neck cracked, and Teldin hurled the neogi away. It fell against the wall with a wet, sickening crunch.

  The Cloakmaster struggled to stand upright, panting with exhaustion. The rats scrambled up his cloak, leaping for his arms and neck. The neogi rose across from him, its head lolling on a hideously broken neck. Its black eyes watched him ferally, and with a tortured scream, the neogi leaped over the rats.

  It gnashed its teeth at him in the air. Teldin swung his sword in one swift motion, and the blade sliced cleanly through the neogi's neck. Blood twirled through the air in an arc. The undead neogi's head dropped into the wave of rats. Its jaws snapped once, then stopped. It took a single, involuntary step forward on its sharp claws; then, as if sensing that some vital part of it was missing, the neogi body staggered, then fell over onto the floor, instantly smothered by the undead rats.

  Rats were covering Teldin's arms, his back. He tore them off with a swipe of his hand, then could feel them jumping, replacing their brothers, on his shoulders, his legs. CassaRoc screamed for him, but the rats were leaping at his face, drawing blood on his cheeks. He felt teeth at his neck and wrenched two rats away with his bloody hands.

  Then a furry snout dove into his cheek. He heard the clack of teeth snapping for his eyes, and he flung himself away, squeezing his eyes tight. He stumbled onto the floor. He felt the rats scurrying beneath him, then over him, over his legs, closing their jaws in his flesh. He felt dizzy. He knew he was bleeding from countless tiny wounds, and he blindly waved his sword defiantly through the rats' midst.

  But the undead came on, seething toward him in an unstoppable mass. He jerked himself up from the floor and spun, trying to shake off the rats, squeezing them in his hands until their bones snapped beneath his fingers.

  Then the room spun. His head tingled with cold: not with the power of the cloak, but from the numbness of losing blood, from the physical shock of countless wounds.

  He fell to the floor as he heard his friends shouting his name. But his sight went black as the rats fell upon him, and he could hear only the snapping of their teeth.

  Gaye involuntarily took a step back. She could feel the immensity of the Fool's evil wash over her in a cold black wave. Her astral body stood revealed in a pale silver light.

  She could still see through the eyes of the Fool's undead rats as they followed the Cloakmaster through the Tower of Thought. Then he ran into the common room and slammed the door on the vermin.

  Darkness. Gaye shuddered and willed her own vision to return.

  The undead master watched her, clucking his tongue almost in laughter. What have we here? he said. An impudent kender, who pretends command overpowers she knows nothing of.

  Gaye searched her memory. He was a lich, she was sure, but what kind?

  They circled each other slowly, warily. She reached out with her psionic senses to test his strengths and weaknesses, feeling a tickle on her skin as she realized he was doing the same to her.

  She felt the blackness that permeated each cell of his body, the corruption that had laid claim to his once-human form. She could feel the enormous powers contained within him, the absence of life, the hatred for love. She focused on the pinpricks of energy that served as his eyes. They grew in her mind, until they were blazing like suns.. twin suns of cold, dark fire.

  She staggered under their fury, the boiling heat of his hatred for all life, especially for the being-ship that he once commanded and now wanted dead.

  … once commanded…

  In a single blaze of brilliant icefire, her mindsight was open. Their senses were linked as each reached out to assess the other's power, and her mind was filled with visions of the past; she saw and felt and was the Fool Romar

  — and saw the power of the ship's sting destroying cities and lands- Romar's unstoppable quest for power, spreading a path of destruction across the spheres — his fall from the captaincy, and his insatiable lust for revenge- and his transformation at the hands of gods from the darkness, from outcast to master lich Gaye gasped. A master lich!

  Then she knew everything, just as the Fool had likewise absorbed all knowledge of her newly learned psionic powers.

  She knew his goals.

  And he knew her limitations.

  From across the chamber, he laughed at her, a rasping laugh that echoed of the grave. Nothing, he said. Your powers are nothing. You are but an insect, a speck blotting my plans for revenge. He swatted a skeletal hand in the air. Her head jerked violently to the side with the impact from an invisible hand. Her cheek glowed warm where his magic had slapped her.

  She lowered her head and glowered at him from under her eyebrows. Her hands lifted into the air, her fingers jutting outward in stiff, awkward positions that reflected the strict discipline of her mind. Circles of glowing power slowly formed around her hands.

  A challenge… The master lich laughed. I do so love a challenge…

  There is no way I will let you kill Teldin, she replied tele-pathically. Bolts of blue energy erupted from her hands and hit the master lich squarely in the chest. He stumbled back and stared at her with his piercing eyes. They narrowed in focus. Without warning, a powerful force slammed into her and threw her into a wall.

  She gasped for breath as her shoulders rang with the impact. The lich's fingers glowed with yellow energy. She crossed her wrists in front of her. A flare of power flew toward her from the lich's fingers, only to be dispersed by a sudden shield of psionic force shimmering around her like a diamond.

  The Fool laughed hollowly. Good. That's very good.

  Then she was bombarded by cold winds that sang from the lich's throat. She was pummeled by crackling balls of power that flickered soundlessly from the lich's eyes. She was struck by bolts of black energy that seemed to absorb the light. Her psionic shield wavered unsteadily, shimmering dully as it was weakened by the Fool's assault.

  She raised her arms high. The air in the chamber began to swirl, forming a tornado of bones and black smoke that surrounded the Fool and sent him spinning.

  Over it all, the Fool laughed.

  The wind stopped upon a single gesture of his bony hand. His eyes burned red, and Gaye's body jerked suddenly, under his mental control. He opened his arms wide for her, and she jerked forward like a puppet. Through her psionics, she felt his plans for her, the delicious taste of her death at his hands, and his scheme for her long undeath under his command.. She concentrated and bolstered her psionic strength and regained control of h
er fingers. "Mental discipline is enhanced by physical discipline," the fal One Six Nine had told her. "The proper positions of your body will complement and increase the focusing of your mind."

  She crooked her fingers in complicated configurations. There! Her right arm was free.

  She took another step forward, toward the Fool and his deadly embrace. She held her arm up and thrust out with her mind.

  The Fool suddenly staggered back under a psionic blow that exploded against him with incredible force.

  Gaye was free.

  She gasped for breath. The Fool was far stronger, more practiced, than she. Gaye knew she could not stop him, not now, as weak as she was; perhaps she could stun him momentarily, just long enough to escape his lair and somehow help Teldin…

  The Fool bellowed with anger. His howl echoed through the warrens like the wail of the wind. He kneeled and raised his arms high above his head and called out, Ygsykhan! Turol-labak! Hear me!

  Gaye focused and realized what she had to do. She drew a deep breath and tapped all the psychic energies she had left. She felt the energies swirling within her, flickering through her veins like fire.

  The Fool stood up. He waved his hands above his head in an intricate pattern. Black smoke curled around his feet, spreading its deadly tendrils toward Gaye.

  She screamed in her mind. The power coursed through her like holy fire, and the chamber was seared with the unyielding white light of a nova, coursing, pulsing from her flesh in a fountain of energy.

  The Fool staggered back and collided with the wall. She felt the chamber instantly cleansed of his foul evil and felt the Fool's consciousness dwindling away in the purifying light of her soul.

  She knew he would revive in just a few seconds. She drew back her energies and focused once more. Slowly, a stasis bubble formed around the Fool, a hindrance just powerful enough to slow time within the bubble, enough to afford Gaye time to escape.

  She sagged, exhausted, but knew she had to go on. With her remaining energies, she visualized the deadly vermin attacking the Tower of Thought. Teldin, she called weakly, Teldin…

  Her astral form faded away, swirling into a glowing, green miasma.

  The bones of an undead rat were shattered beneath Teldin's pounding fist. Their teeth dug into his sides, his arms, his legs.

  Blood ran copiously from tiny, ragged wounds, and still the rats came on, swarming over him, piercing his skin, seeking the hot taste of living blood.

  He fought them, ripping them away like leeches, then he realized that they were no longer attacking. In his mindless rage, he had thrown off at least twenty rats that had simply ceased to move, to attack. He tried to stand and felt dizzy, but most of the rats that had scrambled upon his body fell off dazedly, moving sluggishly, yet without purpose.

  Chaladar yelled, "Teldin! Look!"

  He wavered on unsteady legs.

  The room slowly filled with a green mist, emanating from the jagged hole under the door. Where the mist touched the undead rats, they began jerking spasmodically, violently. Their angry eyes, glowing with unnatural white light, slowly changed, burned with green fire, and their mouths were flecked with bloody spittle. They squealed as the mist entered them and burned its way through their rotted bodies, until their eyeballs sank inside their heads and the mist curled from their empty eye sockets.

  In minutes, the floor was littered with the bodies of truly dead rats, layered over with a carpet of swirling green mist.

  CassaRoc and Chaladar jumped off the bar. Rat corpses crunched under their weight. They helped Teldin up to the bar, where he could sit away from the vermin. "You need attention," CassaRoc said. "You are bleeding like mad."

  "The Guild tower," Chaladar said. "Leoster can take care of you there."

  Teldin looked beyond them and said simply, "Wait."

  The green light from the corridor brightened, then the doorway seemed to glow, filled with emerald light, and inside the light was the dim shape of a woman.

  "Do you see that?" CassaRoc said.

  Chaladar nodded.

  "Good," CassaRoc said.

  She passed through the door and stopped. The green energies that had destroyed the undead rats faded away, and her form was enveloped in a soft, golden glow that radiated a feeling of peace.

  Teldin said, "It- it's Gaye."

  Gaeadrelle Goldring floated directly to Teldin and smiled. His expression was one of shock- gape-mouthed, wide-eyed shock. She could tell he had never expected this.

  "Gaye? Are you real?"

  He reached out, and her energies fluttered with warmth on his fingertips. "It was you," he understood then. "It wasn't a dream I had. But how? How are you doing this?"

  Gaeadrelle Goldring's lips moved. Although her words were inaudible, her voice echoed within all their minds.

  The Fool wants you dead, Teldin. I have stopped him for now, but it is only temporary. The undead will do his bidding. Follow the woven heart. Do not hesitate any longer.

  Gaye seemed to sigh, flickering like a dying torch. Teldin reached out for her, but his hand passed harmlessly through the gold mist.

  "How did you come here?" he said.

  Teldin, I do this for you. Listen to me. I must go now. I am weary and must rest. Her voice became loud in his head. Follow the woven heart. Your'destiny must be fulfilled, and the Fool must be destroyed.

  She started to fade, then her eyes widened, as though she had seen something invisible to all others. Teldin, you must beware. Others seek your… She faltered, then her form faded from view. Her last words were a whisper inside his mind. You are a target… of the bushi..

  Then she was gone.

  Blood seeped through Teldin's torn clothes, over his skin. The cloak was pure and untouched. The blood seemed to bead off it, as though magically repelled.

  CassaRoc cleared a path through the rats bodies, kicking them away. Blood was smeared thickly over his boots. He jerked aside the door and shouted into the corridor. "Come on, now! We've got to get this place cleaned up!" Then he looked around and shook his head. To the Cloakmaster he said, "This is bad business, Teldin. Bad business."

  Teldin nodded. His cloak hung heavy across his shoulders. He felt perhaps more tired, more exhausted, than he had ever felt before.

  CassaRoc's men stopped in the doorway and craned their necks to look in. No one really wanted to come in and wade ankle-deep in rat carcasses, but after CassaRoc explained to them the attack on Teldin, they were more than willing to haul HarKenn to his quarters. A healer was called for the guard and for Teldin, and other warriors went to get shovels and barrels from the basement, in order to dispose of the rat carcasses. Emil even came up and inspected the room on his own. "I'll get the mops," he said happily.

  After most of the warriors had charged off, Chaladar excused himself. "I must check on the Chalice tower," the grand knight said to CassaRoc. "His wounds are more numerous than I thought. I'll send Leoster over again, in case he is needed. In the meantime, I suggest you double your guards on duty."

  CassaRoc agreed, and, as the paladin left, he shouted up the tower for his healer. In a few moments, a priestess known as J'Kai stepped carefully into the room and examined Teldin. She took him behind the bar and bathed his wounds with fresh water.

  First she dried his wounds, then took a jar of white lotion from a pouch at her waist and lathered the medicine into the bites. "I count almost a hundred wounds," she said, then she told him not to move very much. "Leoster will be here soon. This will take care of superficial infections, but this is the work of the undead. Leoster will be better able to heal you than I."

  Teldin thanked her and drew his cloak around him. His wounds felt hot and stinging-purified, in a way, he thought- but he felt as though more than blood had been drained from him from today's events.

  CassaRoc's warriors filed in then, bearing implements to clear the room of the dead vermin. Another of his guards ran in, spied CassaRoc helping with the clean-up, and spoke with him for a few minutes. />
  CassaRoc came over to Teldin as the guard hurriedly left. "It doesn't seem like it's going to stop," he said.

  Teldin was too tired to talk. CassaRoc said simply, "Our allies are itching to get into battle with the neogi. With the attacks organized by the beholders and their allies, our alliance thinks the time is right, when the neogi forces are weakened." He paused. "If they don't hear from us soon, they'll start without us."

  Teldin almost wanted to laugh. "The beholders. Our allies realize, don't they, that we'll have the beholders to battle after we defeat the neogi."

  CassaRoc shrugged. "Not everyone is known for using their brains in the heat of battle."

  CassaRoc and Teldin started when they heard shouts echoing from the level above. "What now?" CassaRoc said.

  CassaRoc stepped into the corridor and started for the stairs, when a guard almost rushed into him in his flight down the stairs. The guard gasped for breath. "CassaRoc, we don't know how it happened."

  "How what happened?"

  The warrior shook his head in regret. "Somehow, they overpowered Hath. They have the lady Cwelanas."

  CassaRoc turned in the doorway, but Teldin had overheard and had already jumped from his seat at the bar. The three of them ran up the stairs, three steps at a time. Teldin felt as though he were surging with energy, and all he could imagine was Cwelanas's sleeping face.

  The inside of Cwelanas's room was dark and smelled strangely of the secret potions of the mage Leoster. In Cwelanas's place, the guard, Hath, lay quietly on the bed, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes.

  Teldin scanned the room, then stood above the guard for a moment before speaking.

  "Hath, what happened here?"

  The man neither heard nor saw him. His eyes stayed at some invisible vista, seen only by him. His face was blank and gaunt, and his white eyes seemed as though they would burst from his head.

  Teldin bent down and gripped the man's shoulders. He was filled with anger, with worry over the fate of Cwelanas. He placed his face in plain sight before Hath's eyes. "Hath, we have to know. What happened here?"