by Roger Moore
Vorr nodded and looked out of the cargo doorway again. The pyramid ship was only a hundred feet off the ground. Thick smoke drifted past him, causing him to wrinkle his nose in disgust. He would take a long vacation after this, away from everything but clean air and pure water. Anyone who disturbed him would be ground up and eaten.
“How are you doing, General?” Vorr stepped back from the entrance momentarily and gave a brief salute to Admiral Halker, who was walking up behind him. The toothless old scro was looking especially cheerful. “The scars giving you any trouble?” he asked.
Vorr shrugged and gestured at his ruined face, turning to look back out of the cargo bay, the bombard held loosely in his fingers.
“I’ve heard that Usso has located Teldin Moore, who is conveniently dead.” The admiral positively beamed. “We should be able to gain the cloak in one more minute. Do you wish the honors?”
Von stared down into the burning chunks of ceramiclike material that once had been one of the mightiest ships in the known spheres. He nodded, his eyes searching.
He then caught sight of a flash of royal blue among the shattered remains of a vast orange wing, spread out across the green ground. Vorr slapped his hands together to get Halker’s attention, then pointed. The old scro came forward instantly to see, standing fearlessly on the edge of the cargo doorway only a few feet from where Vorr stood. Vorr reached out to steady the admiral, but the scro saw the gesture and recoiled, stepping out of reach. “I can manage!” he snapped. “I’m not a cripple yet!”
Vorr withdrew his hand, giving Halker a curious look before he turned his attention again to the ground. The patch of blue was definitely Teldin Moore and his cloak, sprawled on the smoking ground. Beside him lay a giff in a red military uniform. They were both badly wounded, if not already dead, judging from the amount of blood visible even from this height. Both obviously had been caught in the rain of falling debris from the armada.
The pyramid drifted closer and closer, now only man-height off the ground. Vorr stepped up on the edge of the cargo doorway, preparing to jump down. The pyramid came to a stop a moment later. Vorr dropped over the side of the pyramid, landing crouched on his feet with the bombard held outstretched in one arm. He then straightened slowly and walked over to the pair on the ground.
It took only a glance to see that both of them were dead. A falling armada packed a hell of a punch. The cloak on Teldin’s back appeared undamaged, however. Not a scrap of dust was on it. Nice magic, Vorr thought, and he reached down for the clasp on Teldin’s neck. It popped open at his touch.
With a single motion, General Vorr pulled the blue cloak free and raised it in the gentle wind and smoke. It didn’t feel any different than a regular cloak would feel. Magical things were all the same to him. A shame, really, that he couldn’t just wear it himself. It would have been interesting to have commanded the Spelljammer, but it would do just as well to have Admiral Halker do it. It made for a guaranteed job for years to come, a far safer position than if the undead neogi Skarke had been in charge – or Usso, for that matter.
Vorr looked up and saw Halker on the periphery of the cargo doorway. The old scro’s face was alive with naked desire, and his arras were stretched out to Vorr as if Vorr held the scro’s very existence in his hands. Vorr suddenly gave a broad grin, wadded the cloak up with one hand, and tossed it to Halker like a ball. He’d give the old coot Skarkesh’s medallion when he got aboard, and cement his future.
Halker snatched the cloak out of the air, clutching it to his chest in ecstacy. As Vorr stepped forward toward the low stone base of the floating pyramid and tossed his bombard into the cargo bay doorway, Halker made a single thumb’s-up gesture into the air outside the pyramid.
The pyramid lifted rapidly away from the ground.
Vorr slowed his pace for a moment, stunned – then bolted for the pyramid. He leaped at the last moment, mighty hands spread out to catch any pan of the stonework and pull himself aboard. Halker! he thought. Halker, what in the —
He missed and fell, tumbling into a pile of wreckage. As he struggled to his feet, he heard a peal of feminine laughter.
Vorr saw Halker throw his harpoon-bombard somewhere into the wreckage, then continued to watch as the pyramid rose and became a small black square against the patchwork sky, then a square dot, then a mote that faded away as it dropped toward the horizon. For perhaps five minutes, he did nothing else. Then he uttered a word, one that could not have been understood by any listener, through his tortured lips, fused together by slime and torch flame.
“Usso.”
He turned and looked back at the bodies of Teldin Moore and his giff companion.
They weren’t there.
*****
Admiral Halker announced to the crew that General Vorr had wished to explore the wreckage for suitably glorious souvenirs; he would be picked up later by another ship. The scro and ogre warriors smiled and nodded, as they knew the general was just like that. No one but the helmsman noticed that there was one additional passenger aboard the pyramid as it took off, a passenger who had climbed on at the moment Vorr had jumped off, but no one was going up to ask the helmsman anything.
Just before the wizard’s last meeting with Admiral Halker, before the armada was destroyed, Usso had announced his intention to run the helm himself, freeing the war priests for other duties. Only one warrior, an ogre, happened to hear the feminine laughter coming from the direction of Admiral Halker at the cargo bay doors, but he knew that couldn’t have happened. He did think it was curious that Halker appeared to be pantomiming the act of putting on a cloak when he had nothing at all in his hands. But he knew that couldn’t have happened, either. He snorted and went on about his duties.
*****
It had been child’s play to convince Vorr of Skarkesh’s evil intent toward the Tarantula Fleet, requiring only charm spells on Sergeant Dlavish and a few other scro, who had never known what had hit them. Vorr hated undead of any kind, especially liches, and he had been more than willing to believe that Skarkesh would have sold out the scro after Skarkesh’s heavy-handed use of Captain Geraz. Usso had no doubt that Skarkesh was not fond of scro, but she suspected that the rotting neogi gladly would have kept the scro around as its servants. Neogi were neogi, dead or alive, and they craved power over anyone that they could find. Scro were as useful as slaves as anyone else.
It had been tricky, she admitted, and she had almost lost control of things once or twice, but she had pulled it off. The victory left her weak in the knees, but she felt an exhilaration that she couldn’t believe was possible. She had the cloak to the Spelljammer. General Vorr was far behind on the top of a thousand-mile-high beast’s head. Admiral Halker was under her control, charmed by her powers of fascination into crewing the working helm at the pyramid’s apex, but eventually he would be dropped over the side or discarded in some other manner, once a nicer ship could be found.
Usso looked out of the broad doorway of the pyramid’s cargo bay and watched the landscape rise up to meet her with increasing speed. The pyramid was falling through wildspace toward the ground, where they would rest before leaving this sphere. Usso had ordered the rest of the crewmen to their quarters aboard the pyramid. She still wore her magical disguise as Halker; maintaining it was as effortless as it had been to appear to be an old Oriental man or any other humanlike person she chose. It was one of her innate powers as a hu hsien. A marvelous power it was, too.
The rest of the Tarantula Fleet had been given orders by “Halker” to stay behind for a day, hunting for the last man-o-war and any other local elven ships, then to rendezvous back at Spiral. With luck, it would be months before they figured out that something had gone wrong. The scro weren’t impossibly stupid, but their obedience to orders made them the perfect victims of deceptions such as this.
Usso noticed that it would be only seconds before the air envelope around the inside of the Herdspace sphere would be contacted. The ship would slow to tactical speed, but the
cargo bay would still be almost unlivable without the protective doors. Damn the scro for being efficient. She turned away from the door and wandered through the empty cargo area for one of the ladders upstairs to the helm room, then began to climb.
*****
Teldin hesitated as he stepped over a scorched chunk of debris. Something was moving in the smoke ahead.
“Gomja,” he whispered. “There’s —”
“I see it, sir,” the giff rumbled. “It looks too big to be an elf.” Teldin heard the giff fumble with his pistol, then a muttered curse as Gomja threw the weapon to the ground. “Flint’s gone,” he said. “Useless.”
“You’ve got that sword you found, right?” Teldin asked. He reached up and scratched at his nose as Gomja grunted in the affirmative. When he had awakened only minutes ago, he’d found his freshly broken nose had completely healed. The fal must have set up some sort of protective magical wall around Gomja and himself to prevent the wing of the armada from striking him. The wall had been crude, but it had worked. Perhaps he should be grateful.
“Sir,” said Gomja, stopping short behind him.
In the thick smoke ahead stood a huge black-armored figure. It obviously had heard them coming through the debris, and it was waiting for them to approach.
Teldin recognized the black plate-metal armor and its steel studs at once. “Scro,” he whispered, drawing his short sword.
The scro became clearer. It was gray-skinned and nearly of ogre size, as thick across its chest as a tree trunk. Its arms and legs were similarly muscled, surpassing even Gomja’s bulk.
What stopped Teldin short was the scro’s face. Hideously-scarred by either fire or acid, it was barely recognizable as even remotely humanoid, except for its squashed nose and two large black eyes. It regarded Teldin and Gomja without comment. With a start, Teldin realized that the scro’s mouth was blistered and burned so badly that the lips were shut.
The scro made a muffled sound, then breathed heavily for a moment. With a slow, steady motion, it raised its left arm, revealing a large, three-tined fork of black metal. This the scro brought to its mouth and made a quick slashing motion. Blood and pus ran down the scro’s jaw to drip from its chin.
“Teldin Moore,” the scro croaked hoarsely in the Common tongue. “I certainly hope that is really you. I’ve looked forward to meeting you.”
“Sir!” Gomja’s hammy hand clamped down on Teldin’s shoulder. “Get back. You don’t have the experience or the strength to deal with an opponent like this one.”
“We can take it together,” said Teldin. He knew Gomja was right, but he knew of no way to get out of this now. “You go right. I’ll go left.”
“You’re being foolish, sir,” Gomja muttered back, taking a step past Teldin toward the scro. “This is the sort of fight I’ve been hoping to have for months. A worthy opponent is —”
The scro moved rapidly at Gomja before either Teldin or the giff were fully prepared for it. Gomja jerked his sword up and struck down. At the same moment, the scro whirled on one foot, catching the sword in the black fork and coming to stand side by side with the giff, pulling Gomja’s sword arm around in an arc. Reversing the arc, the scro flung the entrapped sword back up over Gomja’s head, tearing it out of the surprised giff’s grasp. The scro’s right knee came up at the same moment and smashed into Gomja’s midsection with a loud thump. The giff gasped aloud, staggering back to get his balance. The scro whirled, reversing its grip on its black fork, and brought the butt end down on Gomja’s broad, thick forehead with an audible crack.
Gomja dropped like a lead weight and did not get up. The scro gazed down at its foe, then turned and looked down at Teldin. Its mouth bled freely, splattering droplets of blood across the front of its black steel armor.
“I seem to have been the victim of some magical hoax,” said the scro, spitting blood carelessly as it spoke. “I thought I had found you dead and taken your cloak. I see that I was wrong, but I can fix that. It’s your turn now. Give me a real fight.”
Teldin backed up. Gomja was breathing, but he was out cold. Teldin’s foot caught on a piece of metal and he stumbled, catching himself at the last moment. He swallowed and looked around. Only smoke and wreckage were visible.
“A fight,” said the scro. “Use your cloak.”
The cloak! Teldin stopped and concentrated, raising his left hand and pointing his index finger at the scro’s head. Power suddenly rushed through his body, setting the hairs on his neck and arms on end.
“Here’s a fight for you!” Teldin shouted.
A brilliant stream of magical bolts flew from his fingers and struck the scro in the face. The burst lasted for several seconds, sending dozens of fiery projectiles at his foe. The energy stream ended abruptly.
The scro appeared completely unaffected.
“Try again,” said the scro.
Teldin caught a hint of something in the scro’s voice, and he realized it was useless. The scro must be resistant to magic in some manner, probably because of a magical item it wore. Using the cloak was not the answer.
But if it wasn’t the answer, what was?
The scro took another step toward Teldin. ‘“You killed Gargon, my bodyguard, on Ironpiece,” it said. “He was a good soldier. He is going to be hell to replace.”
Teldin had no idea what the scro was talking about. Did he mean the ogre who had tried to kill Gaye? Teldin glanced behind him and continued backing up, avoiding the debris.
“I’m disappointed,” said the scro. “I had expected better. Word of your abilities has long preceded you. I was counting on a fight with an opponent equal to me.”
Equal to you, Teldin thought. Equal to you.
Teldin came to a stop. He adjusted his grip on his sword. He had one trick left. It was all he could think of.
“If you wanted your equal,” said Teldin, “then why didn’t you say so?”
He concentrated on the scro, taking in his opponent’s size and musculature. Once he had it fixed in his mind, he focused on his cloak and opened himself to its powers.
For a moment he noticed no change, then felt a rushing of energy through his body that dwarfed everything he had previously felt when using the cloak. He felt his clothing grow tight across his chest and thighs, binding and pulling over his neck and upper arms. He seemed to be getting taller. Fabric ripped and split down his left and right sides. His belt tightened until he thought he would be crushed, then snapped apart and fell away. The sword in his hand seemed to shrink until it was merely of dagger size.
The scro had frozen in place as the transformation started, watching Teldin with wide, dark eyes. Blood continued to fall from its mouth as it stared.
“Impressive,” the scro said as the transformation ended. “You are me. Two General Vorrs. You have become my equal – perhaps.”
Teldin said nothing. He took a deep breath and stepped forward, sword raised. “Soon you will be my lesser,” he replied. He felt none of the bravado he put into his voice, feeling instead that he had been pushed beyond all rational limits. He had nothing left to do but fight.
General Vorr charged him. Teldin saw the gray warrior make a peculiar feint with his black fork-weapon as he came on. Not knowing what to expect, Teldin merely slashed out at Vorr’s face, then impulsively turned completely around and slashed out again. He felt his wild strike bite into the flesh at Vorr’s neck – and felt the impact of the butt of Vorr’s weapon strike him dead center in his chest. Ribs broke, and blinding spikes of white-hot pain shot through Teldin’s lungs. He staggered back, trying to breathe, and felt that he had been stabbed by a half-dozen spears.
Vorr came at him again. Teldin lunged forward, shielding his face with one hand and trying to impale Vorr with his sword in the other. The general sidestepped Teldin and hit him in the back with his fist, unable to bring his black fork to bear. Teldin kicked out in reflex, striking Vorr in the leg and knocking him off balance, then fell on his face and rolled to get up. He wanted to scream
in agony from the pain in his chest and back. He knew he was going to die, but first he wanted to take this scro with him as payment for everything the scro, the neogi, and everyone eke had done to him.
A round piece of ceramic material lay at Teldin’s feet as he got up. He bent down, seized it, and flung it at Vorr, then grabbed a long steel pipe as well and whipped it at the monstrous scro. The ceramic disk burst when it slammed into Vorr’s chest, scattering bright shards everywhere. The general had recovered his balance again when the pipe slammed into his legs and knocked him back down.
Teldin felt a new surge of power flow through him. He wanted to kill this Vorr. Nothing else mattered. With a wild scream that tore his lungs as if they were set aflame, Teldin rushed at the fallen scro and leaped, his cloak and the rags of his clothing flapping in the air. Vorr came up, hands out and empty, and grabbed him by the arms, flinging him over his head and into the grassy earth beyond.
The impact jarred Teldin to the bone. He couldn’t see straight; the world was spinning crazily. With an effort, he rolled back to his hands and knees, just in time to see Vorr come at him, take a short leap, and lash out with his foot for Teldin’s head. Teldin never felt the blow.
*****
Vorr fell to his knees and rested there, panting, for several minutes. It had not been the most challenging fight he had ever had – the fight with the zwarth on Spiral still had that honor – but it had been exciting nonetheless. Teldin had put up a surprisingly good, if brief, fight, mostly because he obviously had so little formal combat training that he could do things to catch a better opponent off guard. Not the best fight, but a worthy one. Vorr was satisfied.