The Ultimate Helm (24 page)

What can I do?
the illithid asked.

“Cwelanas is being held in the warrens by Master Coh and, I think, the Fool. I need to know how to get down there and rescue her.”

Estriss shook his head slowly. His opaque eyes seemed moist, thoughtful.
I do not think I can help you, Cloakmaster. My research has uncovered mentions of the warrens on the
Spelljammer,
but I have not run across locations for entrances. I would guess that some have been sealed in the towers, for fear of what lurks there.

“There must be at least one open entrance,” Teldin said, frustrated. “Coh had to find one somewhere.”

Then Teldin spun around, his eyes wide. “What?”

CassaRoc looked at him, questioningly. “Cloakmaster? Are you all right?”

“I heard —” Teldin started. “I thought I heard —”

Then it came again, a whisper in his ears like the crashing of waves.

Only you can hear me,
the voice of Gaye Goldring said softly to Teldin.
I am weak and have little time to speak.

“Gaye. It’s Gaye,” Teldin said. “She’s speaking to me.”

Teldin, you are in more danger than you know. The Fool desires your cloak and your death. His goals are mad, and he wants the
Spelljammer,
only so he can take it to its death. He will do anything to achieve his goals. Even now he has Cwelanas.

“Cwelanas?” he said. “How?”

Coh is taking her to the Fool. The stakes have been raised.

He stood in wonderment at Gaye’s seemingly magical abilities to discover hidden knowledge, to help protect him. “Gaye, how are you doing this? Where did you get these powers?”

She was silent for a moment, then an image sprang into his mind, of a sunlit day in Herdspace.
Here,
she said.

His head jerked back as his mind was washed with a series of images: of Gaye staying behind as Teldin sailed away from Herdspace; of fal One Six Nine accepting her as his student, and her beginning as a psionicist. He saw her first failed experiments in the psionic arts, then watched her steadily progress into a master psionicist. He saw the first time she used her clairvoyant abilities, and as she discovered that Teldin had finally reached the
Spelljammer.
And would need her help.

He saw this all in a single instant.

It took him a few seconds to interpret her message. Her voice grew weaker.
I must go now. Answer the call, Teldin. Do not delay.

He blinked and called out to her, “You can’t go! How do I

get down into the warrens? How do you know —”

Her voice was a whisper, fading away like her form. He made out one word as her voice trailed away:
library.

He stood silently, surrounded by his warriors.

“You were talking to your friend Gaye?” CassaRoc asked.

“Yes.” Teldin stared away for a moment, then turned to look Estriss and CassaRoc in the eyes. “Something is calling me, though it may not be the
adytum
of which Estriss has told us. Gaye mentioned it just now, as you did earlier, CassaRoc. And if I’ve learned anything on this quest, it is to follow my hunches and trust in fate.”

Teldin looked at Na’Shee. “Perhaps you should come, too. I think we’ll need all the help we can get.”

“Where are we going?” Na’Shee said.

“The library,” Teldin said.

*****

In the eternal darkness that was the warrens, Cwelanas struggled against the behemoth that clasped her tightly within its massive arms.

They had taken her dagger and her mail back in the neogi tower, and now Cwelanas was helpless against the walking horrors that held her captive.

The neogi was huge, the largest she had ever seen. Master Coh was resplendent to his race, tattooed and painted in a spectrum of colors that covered his body. On his forehead was his trademark, a symbol made of interlocked circles that signified his name, his status, and was the brand on his slaves.

The umber hulk that held Cwelanas wore Coh’s brand on his forehead as well. Orik was proud to be Master Coh’s personal slave, even going so far as to try to learn the Common tongue to please his master. His attempts were barely successful, sounding more like the guttural grunts of apes, but he frequently managed to make relatively clear sentences.

“Silent be!” Orik commanded her. He would have said “Be quiet,” but he always had trouble with the “Q” sound, and long ago he had given up even trying to sound it out.

Master Coh was a neogi with an inborn magical talent. In the lead, he concentrated steadily, finding their path using his magical senses to blaze a trail through the darkness. His sharp claws clacked against the floor as they made their way deeper into the warrens, toward his ally, the Fool.

Here, he knew he would receive asylum. Here, the ransom for the meat would be made and the Cloak of the First Pilot would be his. His friend, the Fool, would, of course, choose him. Did not the next one have to be a magician such as he? Would not the Fool reward him for bringing victory to the neogi?

He laughed to himself. The elf would be his key to succession.

He led them down a narrow tunnel, then into another, even tighter and darker. Orik had to crouch as he walked through the tunnel, dragging Cwelanas behind him.

The air grew colder, and the walls around them gradually opened into a chamber, swirling with a black mist that reeked of something rotten. Coh grinned. Venom dripped off his long fangs. He could feel the Fool’s dark presence in the chamber around them.

A blue glow appeared. Coh blinked at the light, forming at the end of the Fool’s wand of conjuration, then he grinned. The light blossomed, and the shrouded form of the Fool appeared. His piercing eyes watched Coh, almost burning into his brain.

“Fool,” Coh said, “it is I, Coh, master of the neogi.”

“Yes,” said the Fool.

“Fool, I have a hostage. With this meat, my claim to the
Spelljammer
will be assured, if only you will —”

The blue light suddenly burst from the Fool’s wand and flared out, encircling Orik’s neck like a living thing, a twisting rope of glowing ectoplasm. The umber hulk’s head erupted with an azure glow, and he reached up to grab his head.

Cwelanas fell heavily to the floor, scrabbled away, and huddled in a corner. Orik clawed at his face as the blue light quickly spread to engulf his body. He screamed once and spun in pain, searching for the master he knew would protect him. “Maaaa-ster...”

Coh turned his narrowed eyes toward the Fool. “What have you done? Are we not allies? Have I not —”

The Fool reached within his cloak of blackness and pulled a broadsword from an ancient, jeweled scabbard. Its sharp blade was serrated wickedly, and the metal was dark, pockmarked with age and corruption. The Fool whispered a single word that seemed to vibrate within the walls of its lair.

With a low chuckle, he flipped the sword effortlessly into the air. At once, the blade came alive, twisted in midair, and aimed its black point at the heart of Master Coh.

Coh backed away, raising his claws in defense. But the blade sliced through them effortlessly and sank deep into his chest, drinking deeply the life force from his black heart.

The neogi collapsed to the floor, side by side with the charred corpse of his faithful servant.

The Fool gestured with a bony hand. One claw of Master Coh’s twitched.

Cwelanas watched in terror as the Fool turned and came toward her, focusing his white-hot eyes at her and rasping low in his throat.

The Fool smiled.

*****

In a connecting tunnel, protected in a tightly woven spell of invisibility, the neogi mage B’Laath’a watched as the blood seeped from Coh’s mortal wound and as the master’s limbs twitched in undead response to the Fool’s spell.

His eyes gleamed with hatred. He had never trusted Coh, but had simply needed the master’s resources to keep Cwelanas enslaved and close to the humans.

It was the Cloakmaster B’Laath’a had wanted, ever since his deathspiders had traced the ancient cloak to the reigar craft on Krynn so long ago. The plan had been his, and the cloak would soon have been his, if Coh had not lusted after its power himself.

Now undead master is, B’Laath’a thought. Plans now effect put into must I. Mine cloak will be! Traced to Krynn, did I, and cloak only mine will be!

Surrounded by his shield of invisibility, B’Laath’a backed softly away up the tunnel, toward the light.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“... And the vessels of evil shall converge on the Sphere Wanderer./Is the Progenitor was in the beginning, so shall be its offspring at the end...”

Grimstone Shadow, mage;
The Tapestry of Margeaux;

reign of Shiwan.

A squadron of ten of CassaRoc’s warriors charged from the neogi tower and formed a half-circle around the entrance. Immediately, Teldin’s party ran through the door and was encircled by the warriors as they started their run to the library tower.

The fighting was steadily increasing across the
Spelljammer,
as the fear of the Dark Times swelled unreasonably and chaos took sway. Goblins and elves battled ferociously near the minotaur tower, which had been abandoned since the alliance of the minotaurs with the eye tyrants. Behind them, near the beholder ruins, the humans watched as a group of halflings beat back a trio of giants that had cornered them near the minotaur quarters.

From all corners of the
Spelljammer,
the clash of steel rang through the streets and alleys, punctuated by the wails of the dying and the war screams of the victors.

The warriors pushed their tightly knit wedge through the elf-goblin battle, scattering the unhumans with a minimum of bloodshed. The fighting was rapidly disintegrating into a free-for-all, and Teldin had organized this protective wedge to get his party through the nearest bottleneck of fighters, so that they could make a run past the goblin quarters for the library.

Past the minotaur tower, where they easily cut through a halfhearted gauntlet of ragged goblin fighters, the human wedge split apart and doubled back to the neogi tower. Teldin, CassaRoc, Chaladar, Estriss, Djan, and Na’Shee quickened their pace and bolted across a wide expanse of open deck for the library tower, situated alongside the captain’s tower. Here, the ship was free of fighting and bloodshed. Teldin afforded a quick glance up, into the flow, and his pace slowed momentarily. The fleets encroaching on the
Spelljammer were
almost there. Teldin quickly gauged the distance to the closest vessel, a wasp ship, and decided it would be within ballista distance within half an hour.

“We see them!” Chaladar shouted. “Come on, Cloakmaster! We can do no good out here!”

They turned at the corner of the goblin quarters. The library tower, across the avenue, had been tightly sealed years ago, and the interior had never been seen since. The library’s double doors were barricaded with brick and mortar, probably thick enough to withstand a battering ram, Teldin guessed.

“What now?” CassaRoc asked. He idly scratched his thickly bearded chin.

“I know you told me the tower had been sealed, but I had no idea it was
this
fortified,” Teldin said.

Chaladar offered, “We should have brought a battering ram.”

They had talked about a ram before, in the neogi tower, but the neogi had no use for battering rams, and the humans did not want to take a chance fighting their way across to the Tower of Thought. Too many lives could be lost.

Teldin stared at his objective and sighed angrily. There were no windows, no other doors, nothing.

“Damn.”

Teldin felt himself staring at the sealed doors, and without realizing it at first, his arms began to sizzle with the familiar embrace of his cloak’s energy. He heard CassaRoc say something, but the words seemed sluggish, barely understandable.

The muscles in his arms burned with fire. The energy flowed through him, embodying his frustration, his anger. Time slowed around him; the edge of his vision was a blur, and all he could see was the stone and mortar blocking him from his goal.

His mind swam, and, with certainty, he felt
I’m supposed to be here.

He slid his sword from its scabbard. The energy that fluctuated through him shot out of his hands. As though it were encased in an aura, the energies of the cloak infused his steel and lit the metal from within, burning with a light that was pure and radiant, explosive.

A scream echoed in his ears, then Teldin realized it was a cry from his own mouth as he leaped up the short flight of steps and swung the sword into the stone barrier.

The sword broke through rock with a clap of thunder. His steel was invulnerable, alive, biting through the stone as though it were bread. Mortar and rock and brick flew out from the onslaught of the Cloakmaster’s powerful blade, and he attacked the barrier again, relentlessly, heedless of the chalk and dust that surrounded him in a pale cloud.

The others stood frozen as the Cloakmaster disappeared in the cloud of dust, a raging berserker against a wall of rock. “Teldin!” CassaRoc shouted. “Are you all right?”

Chunks of brick and stone rained to the deck. There was a final cry, then the dust settled slowly and Teldin stood before a gaping hole in the barrier, untouched by the dust that had surrounded him. The wooden doors inside had been no match for the sharp power of Teldin’s blade. The Cloakmaster had splintered a wide hole through the doors, and the darkness inside beckoned them with mystery.

He turned to face his companions. The power still pulsed through him; they could see the lines of rage and inner strength mapped like pulsating veins across his face. Then he sagged as the power of the cloak flooded out of him. At once, the sword began to vibrate in his hand, and, with a loud snap that echoed off the tower walls, the sword shattered into bent pieces of battered steel and clanged to his feet.

The warriors joined Teldin at the top of the stairs. Chaladar handed him a spare sword from his belt. “Good work,” the paladin said understatedly.

Teldin was silent. He pointed his new sword toward the ragged gap in the door. “Let’s go,” he said, then he crawled through.