The Ultimate Helm tcc-6

by Russ T. Howard

  They watched as Cwelanas killed Coh and the mage leaped to take his place. Then B'Laath'a was destroyed with the power of her chain mail. Cwelanas fell to the ground. The spell holding the warriors was broken with B'Laath'a's death, and they jumped to help the elf.

  She was barely awake, shivering as though with intense cold. CassaRoc knew a bad fever when he saw one, and this one was the worst he had ever seen. "You'll be all right. We need to get you a healer. Can you take the helm like this?"

  She tried to shrug. "It doesn't matter," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I have to, don't I?"

  CassaRoc pushed back a strand of hair. The wounds in her shoulder were angry and red, puckered like craters and surrounded by yellow and blue bruises. "Are you sure?"

  Cwelanas smiled through her pain. She felt her body shiver with a reserve of energy, and her pain began to slowly recede. The chain mail Teldin had given her played its power through her like a healing flow of energy. "I think I will be fine. Teldin has taken care of that. We must go."

  In the smalljammers control room, CassaRoc helped Cwelanas take her seat. Instantly, she felt better, at peace, as the ship warmed to her touch. Its energies flowed through her, giving her strength. "We still have to get out of the gardens," she observed.

  The others looked at her, confused. They had never caught up with her to examine the hangar doors. "What do you mean?" Djan asked. I thought Teldin told us to sail away from here."

  "Yes," she said, "but to cast off we must first get out of the gardens, and neither of the doors will open."

  CassaRoc shook his head sadly and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Damn," he said. "Damn."

  The ship was pounded from above, and the collision reverberated like thunder above their heads. The Spelljammer shook as though it were being slammed by a giant hammer. The warriors sprawled to the cabin deck. The hammering came closer, closer, rolling heavily like a bouncing boulder, and the ship shook with its thudding impact.

  The wall of the gardens exploded inward in a hail debris from the Spelljammer's thick hull. Rubble slammed against the smalljammer, then pattered like hard rain as the echo of the explosion died away.

  Cwelanas looked up, coughing as she inhaled dust. The others stood around her.

  "Look!" Na'Shee said, pointing.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  "… The Architects looked far into Egrestarrian's future and saw the day that a courageous warrior would lead the Offspring to its time of Rebirth. This warrior, they knew, would hold in his heart the strength of peace, a hatred of death, and a quest for a higher existence than that of his own plane. "It is these noble desires with which they seeded Egrestarrian, the Compass, and the Cloak of the First Pilot; for they knew that the currents of destiny would lead these things to the Son of the Architects, who held these concepts dear in his soul, and would die for his ideals as the Last Pilot…"

  The Mage of the Owls, journal; reign of Velina, the second Pilot.

  The Cloakmaster saw it with the Spelljammer's eyes. The scro battlewagon was listing dangerously, descending toward the Spelljammer at incredible speed.

  He reached out with his senses and felt Gaye. He felt her warm, golden glow, distant, weak, but still alive and, without words, he knew that all was right. Then he reached out and touched the battlewagon, looking ahead with one of the Spelljammer's innate senses that transcended understanding and human explanation.

  He asked a question.

  He saw a ship, a star, a broken sphere.

  He understood, and it was good.

  The Eviscerator plummeted down from the flow. A ballista missile from the Tower of Trade unexpectedly hit the ship's wildfire projector, and the stern of the scro battlewagon erupted into flames that trailed the ship like a cape of fire.

  Teldin willed the ship to move, and the Spelljammer turned gracefully. The starboard wing lay spread out before the hurtling battlewagon to act as a landing field, but the Eviscerator was sailing in from starboard. And the centaur tower lay directly in its fiery path.

  The maimed face of the battlewagon met the stonework of the centaur tower head on. It crashed through the tower, then bounced once, twice, and started rolling as flying chunks of stone rained all around it. A trail of flaming wildfire followed, quickly spreading across the starboard wing as quick as liquid fire, igniting the flow in a series of explosions.

  The fiery substance burned through the outer hull to catch fire inside the ship's porous body. The scro battlewagon careened over the wing and spun blindly into the starboard door of the gardens, tearing a huge, jagged hole in it before bouncing off the Spelljammer's bow and tumbling into the phlogiston.

  The explosion at the bow hurled the Spelljammer up and shot the jagged remains of the battlewagon into the ship's underbelly. The Cloakmaster reeled under the explosive force, then sought out the Spelljammer's consciousness, felt the cold wildspace of the Broken Sphere surrounding him, and he again became one with the ship. He straightened their course toward the remnant of the star.

  He reached out and saw Cwelanas and CassaRoc, Djan and Estriss, Na'Shee and Chaladar safe in the smalljammer, and he touched their souls in a final farewell gesture. Cwelanas shook herself; CassaRoc got up from the floor and placed a hand on her uninjured shoulder, wondering why he was suddenly thinking of Teldin.

  — You must go now, Teldin told Cwelanas. -This may be your last chance.

  She did not hear him, but she felt the meaning of his words in her soul. She nodded to herself, and the smalljammer levitated inches above the earthen floor of the gardens and angled toward the rent in the door.

  The battlewagon's wildfire spread quickly into the gardens, choking the air with oily black smoke. Teldin felt part of his soul, the Spelljammer's soul, lift then. In a minute, as the Shou tsunami and its plague of locusts, twice as dangerous as the elven flitters, descended upon the Spelljammer, he watched as the smalljammer flew from the wound in the door and accelerated, turning sharply past the great ship's rams and shooting past, flying like a missile out through the gap in the Broken Sphere, and into the endless void.

  — Good, Teldin said.

  — Good, the Spelljammer said.

  And their voices were one.

  The Spelljammer increased its speed.

  The locusts that fell upon the Spelljammer from the tsunami were all armed with light weapons. They flew through the streets and between towers crazily, their missiles and catapults reaching places that the Spelljammer's crew originally thought were safe. Some locusts were loaded with smoke powder and deliberately rammed into the most heavily fortified towers, committing fiery suicides that were designed to burn out the enemy.

  Selura Killcrow, crushed beneath a load of medium boulders shot toward a group of her fighters, died under the onslaught.

  Korvok the Fell, who had proudly boasted that he was the foulest man in all the spheres, died as a Shou mage from the tsunami targeted the Tenth Pit with a spell of detonation and the walls themselves exploded with their own latent energy.

  Arvanon, the lizard priest of the Spelljammer, died as the wildfire from the wrecked battlewagon filled the gardens with a roiling fireball.

  Kaba Danel, the leader of the dracons, died as a wave of arrows from some unseen vessel spilled across the top of the dracon tower and found a target in his chest.

  The forgotten captains imprisoned in the Dark Tower- Jokarin, Theorx, and Miark-all died true deaths under the weight of the tower's rubble.

  Unholy fires broke out across the Spelljammer. The roof and upper floors of the dwarven citadel exploded in flame as a pair of locusts slammed into it, killing more than a hundred dwarves in a single blow. A squadron of locusts swarmed over the port towers and stormed them with lightning bolts of pointed steel. Ogres died under tons of rubble. The kasharin butchered themselves with their death rays for lack of living targets. The towers of Trade and Thought fell under the locusts' assault, to become nothing but a pile of rubble and shattered bones.

 
The tsunami itself came on then. Missiles and boulders, iron shot and jettisons, flew through the flow unerringly, piercing the Spelljammer's eyes, shattering the buildings arranged behind the bow, destroying what was left of the dracon tower. The giff tower fired its quadruple bombard, and the top of the tower exploded in a huge gout of orange flame. The phlogiston around it burst into a cascade of fire, and the Cloakmaster knew-felt-that Diamondtip and the giff were gone.

  He felt hot anger surge through him as his people died, as the beauty, the wonder, of the Spelljammer's existence was obliterated by the wolves of war. His fury accelerated up his spine, collecting in his tail with the force of a nova.

  The tail blazed white with the light of a thousand stars, and a shimmering torpedo of energy shot like a comet straight into the bow of the Shou tsunami. The sky lit up with the purifying light of vengeance.

  The Spelljammer sped up and tore through the dust cloud that had been the tsunami. Cold black planets shot past. The ships that had been following disappeared behind him, becoming specks against the ragged outline of the flow. A trail of phlogiston followed the Spelljammer as though the ship were dragging a fiery leash. Teldin reached out with his mind and touched the souls of the ship's survivors. He exerted his will, and the air envelope was filled with a sweet narcotic that brought peace to the ship's remaining inhabitants.

  — Understand, he implored, and he showed them what must be done.

  And they understood.

  Aeyenna was a broken star, still active, but not whole, clearly dying a slow death. It grew in Teldin's eyes, blossomed like a brilliant, shining promise.

  He gauged the ship's impossible speed of thought through wildspace, and the distance between he and the stellar remnant. Energy flickered teasingly along his spine and burned hot in the tip of his tail.

  — Aeyenna, he sang loudly, the First Sun.

  He focused on the remnant burning in wildspace before him.

  — Be strong. Be pure.

  — Be renewed.

  At the last instant, before he expelled the Spelljammer's final, explosive star, Teldin thought — Cwelanas,… I do love you.

  Then the globe of energy shot out toward its target inexorably, perfectly, without mercy… into the Spelljammer itself.

  The great ship exploded, its rubble and fragments and bodies and the shards of its hull becoming fire, spreading out through the Broken Sphere in a million blazing meteors.

  For an instant, against the black wall of the sphere, the ship became a firebird, outlined in light and flame.

  But the Spelljammer lived.

  Its core, its soul, shone in the black Broken Sphere with the light of a nova.

  The soul of the spaakiil merged with the surviving fragment of Aeyenna.

  The explosion was exultant, holy.

  The Spelljammer's wake of phlogiston ignited immediately, merging in flame with the ship's soul, with the swirling, living matter of the Spelljammer and the star it had killed.

  He could feel the great ship's enemies dying instantly, like a candle snuffed out with a single, powerful breath. He felt his own people die, then merge together, like butterflies on the wind. He felt the locusts and their helmsmen burn away, without pain, to transform into pure energy. He felt the foul flesh of B'Laath'a, of the Fool, see true light for the first time, and he hoped their souls knew peace.

  His energies exploded outward and vibrated against the wall of the cracked sphere. The energies, merging with the chaotic matter of the flow, reshaped, reformed. They swirled, condensed, creating a new inner shell for the Broken Sphere. Fractures were filled, made whole with the energies from the Spelljammer's sacrifice. With each explosion of matter, with each resultant expulsion of raw energy, the immeasurable gap in the sphere slowly closed.

  Cwelanas watched, screaming, with the mental view from her ship's helm. The flow before the smalljamrner was spotted with a large fleet of vessels, all bearing down upon her. She knew she could not defeat them. She knew she could not get into even a single battle, for the smalljamrner had no weapons aboard.

  Then, in her mind's eye she saw the Broken Sphere, behind her, light up impossibly from inside. She felt people die in a single blaze of pure white light. She felt the Spelljammer…

  No! she thought. TELDIN!

  She spun the smalljamrner about and desperately headed for the sphere. She broke out in a cold sweat and felt the cabin waver dizzily around her. CassaRoc and Chaladar shouted at her, but she could not hear them for the thunderous beating in her own ears.

  In the instant before she passed out, she heard-felt-a voice, a soul.

  Yes, it was Teldin, one last time.

  She felt a song, his song, echo through her very being. It was an ancient song, one of fate, of wonder, a song of life.

  She halted the smalljammers movement, and the ship sat silently in the flow while her friends gathered around her and she wept.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  "… And it is written that the Cloak of the First Pilot will deliver the Last Pilot to the throne of Creannon, the Destined One. "And the Last Pilot shall sow the seeds of Creannon s destiny, and shall rejoice in the budding of new life. "For that which was lost will be restored; and that which will be lost shall be restored…"

  Sargathus, librarian; reign of the Third Pilot

  The fleet surrounded the smalljamrner without incident. It was a fleet of sidewheelers, all gnomish make, and two elven armadas, and she recognized the military bearing of the fleet's leader instantly.

  Herphan Gomja, the giff who had befriended Teldin at the start of his quest, wept openly at news of the Cloakmaster's death. He and the ships under Vallus Leafbower's command had arrived too late to defend the Spelljammer, but Gomja saw new purpose in the deliverance of Cwelanas and the Spelljammer's progeny.

  They stayed for a day in orbit around the Broken Sphere, and they marveled at the ebony crystalline wall that stretched before them, blotting out the horizon. The shell was perfectly intact, and it glowed as though with an inner life, energy flickering through the shell like thoughts: generating, regenerating, creating.

  The Broken Sphere was no more, for it had been renewed.

  The warriors aboard the smalljammer were offered posts on the ships of the gnomish-elven fleet. No one wanted to decide on anything just yet, preferring to stay with Cwelanas for this leg, the first leg, of her own quest throughout the spheres. This war was over, and each person had seen all too much of battle since the Cloakmaster's arrival. The mind flayer stayed with Cwelanas as well, and he studied the sphere while they lingered in orbit.

  With the War for the Spelljammer over, the ships turned away from the sphere, the Spelljammer Sphere, as Estriss was calling it, and headed deeper into the flow.

  Cwelanas found her friends outside, on the observation deck, staring behind them at the slowly receding black sphere. They turned at her approach. Djan put a hand on her shoulder. " Verenthestae," he said. "All is as it should be."

  She nodded, wishing it were otherwise. They all watched the sphere in silence for a time, then the mind flayer looked up.

  My observations are not complete, but I have discovered something interesting, he said.

  Na'Shee baished back her hair and turned. CassaRoc leaned forward on the rail and tried to look farther into the flow, as though he were searching for something.

  "What have you found?" Cwelanas asked.

  Estriss gestured toward the Spelljammer Sphere. The sphere is somehow locked from entrance. We could not open portals to sail inside, even if we tried.

  "I know," she said.

  The mind flayer nodded. But there are thin parts in the crystal, where the shell is still forming. It is not opaque at those points.

  "What is it, Estriss? What did you see?"

  His eyes crinkled happily, as though he had witnessed all the wonders of the universe.

  A new birth. A new beginning. A sun, Estriss said. I believe I saw a new sun.

  Epilogue

&nbs
p; "Here begins the log of Creannon, the Spelljammer, and the Last Pilot, who is now the First…"

  Cloakmaster, the Chosen Pilot; day one

  The eternal blackness of cold, empty space, a void of nothingness, was momentarily dispelled. First an almost infinitesimal glimmer of light appeared where before there had been nothing, then an immeasurable expulsion of pure, blinding power ripped the contours of space and time and spewed energy-pebbles, trails, streams of raw power-across the black, eternal, timeless sea.

  In the center of the explosion, a shape, a living thing, feeding off the fires of creation, began to coalesce inside the raw, swirling phlogiston.

  It glowed from within, magic and energy pulsing like rivers of fire through the veins that had once been called warrens.

  Creannon, the Spelljammer, sailed from the doorway its own death had created and spread its great wings into wild-space. The nova of its birth dissipated. The Spelljammer sang into a cold, sunless night that it had never before experienced in the forever light of the flow.

  — The universe, the Spelljammer said, is ours.

  — It is reborn.

  The soul of Teldin marveled at the emptiness of this universe. Here the powers and the matter of the flow had been transformed into raw, untamed energy, and he could feel through the Spelljammer's senses that the universe was spread out before them like a blanket, unbounded as far as he could see. This universe seemed to be entirely wildspace: cold, empty, mostly devoid of life. Here suns burned in space while the planets around them slowly evolved, and rarely did the processes of life naturally occur. -This will change, the Cloakmaster said.

  — Yes. Our destiny is to create. Life is all-important. -And the universe we have left behind… What of it?

  — That is closed to us now. We must look forward, not behind.

  — What of the Broken Sphere? What have we left behind? There was a pause. Then: — Here is but one of their possible futures…