by Roger Moore
Teldin glanced up and saw that the green butterfly was now getting a fix on his location. It was beginning to rotate its stern toward him again. He could see that the rear door on the ship was still open, and the two silver-armored elves were still there. He looked down, sweeping the grass away with his hands as fast as he could. Then he thought to trace Gomja’s footprints back to see if the pistol might be there, closer to where the green butterfly had struck the giff.
Almost immediately, he found the pistol, lying in a clump of grass.
Teldin reached down and snatched the pistol up in a blur. He raised it in the direction of the rotating green butterfly.
Without warning, time sped up again.
Teldin almost cried out in exhaustion and pain, his aim on the butterfly waving wildly as his hands shook. The cloak had cut off its power! What was wrong with it? Gods, what was wrong with the damned thing?
Someone was shouting a garbled command inside the green butterfly from between the two rearward elves. The two armored elves aimed their wands at Teldin, again chanting in unison. Teldin gripped the pistol with both hands and squeezed the trigger, just as the wands flashed together in gray light. The pistol’s explosion wiped out all other sound and filled Teldin’s head with a screaming whine that rang endlessly through his ears.
The gray light struck Teldin and surrounded him. In an instant, he felt his entire body stiffen, clutched in total paralysis. The wands’ magic had been dead on target – and he saw that neither of the two elves in the rear of the green butterfly were injured by the pistol’s bullet. Helpless, Teldin saw the two elves shout in triumph.
The green butterfly abruptly tilted forward, going into a slow roll in the air. The two elves suddenly clutched at separate sides of the door to avoid falling out. As Teldin watched in shock, his body rigid in the grip of the elves’ magic, the front of the green butterfly appeared from below, upside-down, as the ship continued to roll over. The limp body of the butterfly’s helmsman was visible in the center of the forward window, dangling from straps that held him into his helm chair. A splash of crimson stained the upper part of the helmsman’s white shirt. His eyes were wide with surprise. The window in front of him was shattered where the pistol ball had smashed through it after passing through the elf.
The ship then made a quick turn to the right, drifting away from Teldin, before one of its wings caught the ground. The entire ship tumbled wildly as it rolled, its ceramiclike wings breaking and shattering in huge shards. The body of a silver-armored elf flew into the air.
A foot the size of a large cottage came down and slammed into the remains of the ship, crushing them flat. Teldin rolled his eyes up and saw the colossus soaring above him like a thunderhead. The giant held one huge hand to the right side of its face, from which ran rivers of pinkish fluid. Its scraggly teeth set in a grimace, the giant reached down for Teldin with its left hand.
The shadow of the Perilous Halibut passed over Teldin as the ship shot by overhead, just missing the giant’s head. Teldin saw a cloud of debris fall from the ship’s stern and strike the titan in its grotesquely muscled chest.
A flash of sparkling light enveloped the giant on the instant, hiding it entirely from view. A moment later, soundlessly, the giant vanished.
*****
Later, when the paralysis spell had worn off Teldin, everyone tried to sort it out as they gathered in the grass outside the Perilous Halibut. Now missing its tail fin, the ship was easily able to land on the grassy plain, though it was tilted a bit on the rough ground. Ropes had to be used to climb down from the upper deck to the ground. The loss of the tail had changed the ship’s gravity plane slightly, but the ship was still airworthy, despite Dyffed’s jests to the contrary long ago.
“Sylvie sent me to the jettison when we heard the giant in the woods, and we took off after you in a flash,” Gaye recalled, unconsciously winding a lock of her hair around a finger as she spoke. “When the gnomes yelled to fire, I just pulled the lever, and thunk! the jettison threw everything out. Then I looked out the back and said, ‘Wow! Where’d the giant go?’ and that’s all I know. Do you think the gods got mad at him? That happened on Krynn once, you know. The gods got mad, and boosh! They dropped a whole flaming mountain on this one really mean country, just flattening it! It was really wild! You know about that, Teldin, right? Could the gods blow up the giant just like that? Could the gods have made the jettison flatten him? What do you think, Teldin?”
“Oh, no, id wasn’d the gods, nod ad all,” interrupted Dyffed, waving a bandaged hand in dismissal. “I exabined the area and found no elebendal drace of the bonsder ad all. Id was cobplede disindegration of badder on an adobic level, exacdly the kind of thing I did by thesis on ad Lirak’s Cube the year thad the dweoberfusion alchebical laboradory dook off and landed in Inediblegreensludge Bay. Thad was also the sabe year by advisor bisdook his giand habsder for his wife when he cabe hobe frob class, and the poor fellow was —”
“The thingfinder,” Teldin interrupted. “Gomja threw the thingfinder in the jettison. Could that have done it?”
“The thingfinder?” Dyffed said, blinking. “Whad a sdrange idea. I forgod all aboud id. Id was durned on when I had by accidend, and there always was sobe concern aboud the resulds of a promixidy-induced feedback loop through the liddle blue widged, although I personally said the plasba flow was sdable enough do allow —”
“Was it possible that the thingfinder did it?” Teldin said, his patience gone and his voice just shy of a shout.
Dyffed appeared taken aback at Teldin’s vehemence, “Well, now thad you bention id, I suppose so, bud I sdill feel —”
“Teldin!” Aelfred called. All heads turned to see the brawny blond warrior waving a hand from the ship’s stern. “Gomja’s coming around. You’d better get back here.”
Teldin nodded and waved back once. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said to the group. “Let’s just drop it. The giant’s gone, we’re alive, and I’ve got to see a giff about a little problem and hope he’s going to enlighten me. Then I’m probably going to be tempted to throw him off this damned giant animal and let him think about things for a thousand miles or so on his way down.”
Teldin felt a gentle hand on his arm. He pulled away from it. “General Gomja wouldn’t betray us,” Gaye said softly, looking up at him with wide dark eyes. “I can’t believe it. He really cares about you, Teldin. He —”
“He was feeding the elves information on us!” Teldin shouted back in a red rage. “Only the gods know how he was doing it, but he kept the elves right behind us, every step of the way, just so that they could try to kidnap me! That big son of a bitch was working for them! He’s another Rianna Wyvernsbane, eager for some cash and ready to sell a friend out! I was a blind, gods-damned fool not to have seen it! Damn you, Gaye, what do you know, anyway?”
Gaye looked up at him as all the color drained from her face. Her mouth was barely open, but no words came out. She suddenly looked down and let go of her curl, her hands falling limp at her sides.
“Teldin!” Aelfred called again.
Teldin knew he had gone too far, but he was too angry to take it back or think about it. With a last look at the silent kender, he left the group and walked off through the grass. “Coming,” he called to Aelfred, his voice cracking. He felt very tired. What was the point to all this? Who cared about the cloak at all? If he could have given his cloak away at that moment to just anyone, he would have done so, and gladly. He was sick of this whole quest and everyone in it. He just wanted to leave.
But first, he promised himself, he would have some answers.
Chapter Sixteen
“Ease it in,” said General Votr. His face was solid, eyes focused on the flying pyramid only five hundred feet away. Only three other scro were out, two of them on the forecastle deck with the general. The general slowly drummed his thick fingers on the railing, stifling a sudden yawn. He looked away from the pyramid ship just ahead and glanced at the distant shap
e of the one-horned world-monster where Teldin and the gnomes had gone. He shrugged. It was an hour away, but it could wait. An interesting sphere, this was, and worthy of a closer look after the elves were crushed.
He turned to the scro to his left, the first mate of the Tarantuk’s Trident. The pale-skinned scro appeared almost fat, his girth straining against his spiked black armor. The general knew that all of that “fat” was muscle. The first mate glanced back, his huge boar’s tusks shining dully in the bright sunlight overhead, and he winked, Vorr gave a curt nod. The first mate looked back at the pyramid, seemingly relaxed, his hands open and hovering near the hilt of the broadsword and the handle of the axe that hung from his thick belt.
Almost there, thought the general. Almost there. The false lich didn’t seem to suspect a thing about the request for a short conference before making the dose assault on Teldin and his allies. Usso had done her work well with only hours to spare; she’d get a nice reward out of this one, even if she was a bitch otherwise. The Trident coasted toward its unknowing prey, only seconds away from the gravity plane of the deceptively small stone pyramid. The ziggurat had twice the mass of the much-larger squid ship, and a miscalculated move would smash the two ships together, leaving the squid ship sitting in front of several batteries of catapults and ballistae at dead-zero range, its ram jammed into stone.
But there would be no error. Vorr slowly took a breath through his nose, held it for a few moments, then slowly let it put through his lips. No error at all. It was good to be back at war again.
The Trident jerked and shifted. They’d hit the pyramid’s gravity plane dead on.
Vorr grasped the railing with one hand and turned to the speaking tube that led to the helm. “Roll over!” he shouted. Then he threw his head back, drew a swift breath, and roared at the top of his lungs at all the universe. He felt his power go put as he screamed, unstoppable, born into fire and death.
Dozens of muffled screams answered his own, and pounding feet thundered three steps at a time up from the ship’s cargo deck, where Usso had hidden the scro and ogre warriors after teleporting them in from the other ships, Howling soldiers in full battle gear, black leather gleaming, poured out from their hiding places. Weapons clanged against spiked armor; eyes glowed green with rage.
The view of the universe around the Tarantula’s Trident immediately spun in a tight circle as the ship shot forward, crossing the pyramid’s gravity plane and approaching from below. The ship lifted slightly to clear the edge of the bottom of the pyramid, then slid to a full stop as its hull scraped across the rough stone of the base. If there were any hatches or bay doors on the pyramid’s bottom, they were jammed shut now. Screaming battle cries and curses, the scro and ogres on the main deck snatched up ropes hidden by the railings, then hurled themselves over the sides of the ship, rappelling to the stones below.
Vorr was the first one over the side, ignoring the ropes for the twenty-five-foot fall. He tumbled when he hit but was up at once, and he began waving on the horde. Tight units of ogres and scro, led by war priests, thundered on metal-shod boots for the sides of the pyramid.
“Move it! Move it!” Votr shouted, now heading for the edge himself amid the screaming mob. “Send the bastards back to the Hells! Almighty Dukagsh watches you!”
Vort knew they were already luckier than they deserved. Usso said she had found at least one scro aboard each ship who been charmed into the lich’s service. The fox-woman had used up nearly all of her precious scrolls and spell books in undoing the charms and freeing the scro from the lich’s domination. It had been easy thereafter to piece together the lich’s plot to spy on his scro allies and set up saboteurs in their midst, traitors who would slay the helmsmen of their own ships and send their fleet into a thousand-mile dive to the ground below. The once-charmed scro were now the most frenzied of those leading the attack, berserk in their desire for vengeance. Not even skeletons would be spared; the war priests would destroy them, rather than command them into service with their powers. Skarkesh had gone too far. Dukagsh, wherever he was, would look down and be proud this day.
Vorr gripped the stones at the edge of the pyramid’s base and climbed down. Moments later, he felt a rush of nausea come and go as he crossed the pyramid’s gravity plane, now greatly altered with the landing of the squid ship. He turned around on the stone wall and began climbing up the stonework of the pyramid’s face, surrounded on all sides by his troops on hands and knees.
Luck was still with him: He was on a face leading to the pyramid’s cargo doors. The massive, ancient bronze gates were sealed, as were the weapons’ bay doors farther up the pyramid’s slope. There was no point in trying to force the latter open; it would only waste time.
“Satchel!” a war priest shouted. Moments later, a scro scrambled up the slope to the bronze doors and tore off his thick backpack. The war priest began a short chant, then finished by slapping his bare right hand against the base of the doors at their separation. The wat priest then seized the backpack and jammed it against the doors. The scro in the area moved away from the doors as fast as they could go, then hunkered down, shielding their faces with their armored arms. No one stayed below the doors.
The spell, a minor fire-lighting magic, went off. A burst of flame erupted around the backpack for a moment before the smokepowder in the backpack ignited. The white-hot blast blew a fountain of rock and twisted metal into the air, with shrapnel screaming over the scro backs. With a wrenching metallic sound, one of the two cargo bay doors fell forward and blanged down the side of the pyramid, falling free to bounce through the ship’s gravity plane like a flat yo-yo.
Vorr was on his hands and feet on the instant, crossing the stone face for the opening. He had claimed the right of first entry into the lich’s pyramid. He had reasons other than sheer glory for wanting this particular honor. When he got to the entryway, he grabbed a bag from his side and emptied its orightly shining contents into his hand, then flung them into the space beyond. The two-dozen pebbles each had permament light spells on them. Without further delay, Vorr pulled his huge sword free, gripped it with both hands, and jumped down into the space where the left cargo bay door had once stood. He looked into the pyramid.
The dead were waiting for him inside.
Another maddened war cry erupted from his lips, and Vorr leaped into the thick of the sword-wielding skeletons before him. His sword whipped out and around, shearing through skulls, spines, and rib cages. The filthy stench of decay and rot assailed his nostrils and filled his lungs. The dead surged forward, fearless, mindless, reaching at him with bone fingers and thrusting with dulled sabers and long swords. In a parody of the living, the animated nightmares came on by the dozens, perhaps by the hundreds. The lich had packed the cargo bay with them.
Wild screams sounded behind the general as scro and ogres poured into the room and joined battle with the undead. Earsplitting shots rang out in the bay as starwheel pistols and heavy arquebuses were fired at point-blank range into the skeletal army. Bone fragments ricocheted from the walls and door, scattering across the room.
Vorr’s sword swept tirelessly through the dead, severing hands and arms, chopping through their old weapons like a razor through flesh. He spun as he advanced, hewing at every side, eschewing any tactic except slaughter. I’m killing the dead, he thought, and laughed even as the white dead continued to come at him in droves.
A bright tongue of flame flashed into being to Vorr’s right. It was the war priests again, he knew, and fought on. The hoard of spell scrolls captured from the elven world of Spiral had been unexpectedly rich. Flame-strike spells burst up from the rear of the room, enveloping the skeletons packed there and incinerating them at once. Waves of searing heat washed through the room and across Vorr’s exposed face, but he hardly noticed them.
The ranks of the dead thinned out. Scro and ogres had already found the many ladders leading to levels above and below the cargo deck, and they swarmed up and down, their swords and axes ready.
Vorr made a roundhouse swing through two skeletons charging him, shattering them like glass, then made for one of the ladders leading up. He clutched the hilt of his sword with one hand as he climbed, not daring to sheath it again. Several of his troops immediately followed him.
Vorr remembered the pyramid in the Glowrings Sphere, and how its lich had placed two helms within it, one at the pyramid’s apex and the other atop a small building in an open space in the middle of the pyramid. The fastest way to either locale was straight up. The middle helm could be reached by leaping across a balcony that ringed the open space; the apex would take many ladder climbings to reach. The false lich would have nowhere to run. Vorr could hardly wait.
Vorr reached the next level up. Nothing waited for him there except for other scro, pouring up the other ladders. Seeing no sign of combat, Vorr continued up the ladder to the next level. It was then, in the dim light from above, that he thought he saw something moving over the open hatchway. He hurried his climb, taking the steps four at a time in hopes of catching whoever was there off guard. He tensed, preparing for rocks or worse to be dropped through the hatch onto him.
As his head and shoulders hurtled up through the hatchway to the next level, something huge with thick claws swiped at his head. Vorr tried to duck but succeeded only in negating pan of the blow. Iron claws tore away his steel helmet and slashed his left cheek open to the bone.
Vorr let go of the ladder. He found his grip on his sword, then thrust it with all his might into the umber hulk standing right beside the ladder. His blade struck the ‘hulk’s leather belly and tore through it, driving into its vitals, all the way to its back and out. With a deafening inhuman squeal, the ‘hulk lurched back, almost dragging the sword from Vorr’s fingers. A moment later, it lunged again, its four alien eyes aglow. A death scream sounded from across the room, where a scro doubtless had worse luck with another of the monsters.
There being no room to swing his blade, Vorr again thrust his sword into the creature, aiming for its head. The monster’s claws slashed down into his armored shoulders as the sword’s tip plunged into the ‘hulk’s open mouth, between its mandibles, and broke through the back of its skull. With all the strength he could muster, Vorr swung his sword aside at the same time, so the ‘hulk’s momentum carried it past the general and flung it away into a siege machine nearby. The sword cut its mouth open to twice its normal width. The giant beetlelike monster crashed through wooden supports and ballista bolts, rolling over and over in a tangled heap of shattered wood and rope.