The Ultimate Helm

by Russ T. Howard

  Cwelanas knew then what she must do.

  The others stayed protected behind the kender’s psionic shield. Cwelanas took a deep breath and gathered all her strength, giving form to all the rage and frustration she had felt, helpless in the Fool’s grasp.

  Then, in one swift lunge, Cwelanas leaped to her feet. Her heavy chain uncoiled and she flung herself between the combatants, swinging the chain in the air. With the snap of brittle bones, the chain whipped around the Fool’s head.

  One bony hand shot up and grasped her wrist. The Fool laughed in her face, his skull splintered above its right, dead eye. “You cannot hurt me, woman. You —”

  Then its eyes seemed to widen in fear. Her other hand had found the Fool’s amulet and gripped it tightly in one fist. She yanked hard once. A golden link shot away from the necklace, and the amulet came loose from the Fool’s neck.

  “No!” it screamed. “No! Give me that!”

  Cwelanas shoved the Fool away. It staggered back a step, then rushed for her, fury blazing in its hollow eyes.

  But her arm was back. She put all her strength behind the throw, and suddenly the amulet was sent flying across the chamber, to be plucked from the air effortlessly by the Cloakmaster.

  “Destroy it!” Cwelanas screamed. “Destroy it now!”

  The Cloakmaster dropped it to the floor, and he brought the heavy heel of his boot down upon it, shattering the ruby facets.

  With an explosion of scarlet energies, the amulet burst. The Cloakmaster stepped away as crimson smoke erupted in a widening circle in the floor. A storm of orange and black smoke, streams of magical fire and raw power, shone through the widening circle of light to cast its deep red glow upon the Fool’s horrified countenance.

  The circle of flame fluctuated, widened, flaring brilliantly with extraplanar energies, then a great shadow eclipsed the light blazing from the fiery, otherworldly plane. One great, clawed hand reached out from somewhere unreal, somewhere unimagined on the plane of the groundlings, and into our universe from its own.

  The Fool screamed, “Noooooooo!”

  The fiendish being was more than twice Teldin’s size, and it stepped from its own funereal plane into the adytum, glowing, scarlet smoke trailing in its wake. It gestured with its four arms, two ending in powerfully clawed hands, the others with sharp pincers that could disembowel a man with one casual swipe. The fangs in its shaggy canine head were jagged and sharp, and it snarled ferally at the shielded warriors who backed away from it. Its blank eyes burned an angry red, and it moved to stare first at the Cloakmaster, then Cwelanas, then finally on the skeletal form of the Fool.

  Its laughter echoed like thunder throughout the chamber, reverberating off the walls so loudly that the fighters could feel it in their feet. I KNOW WHY I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED! The words boomed through their heads as the thing spoke telepathically.

  The thing roared ferociously, moving slowly toward the Fool. The lich lifted Cwelanas before him and used her as a shield, backing as far away as possible.

  It was one of the tanar’ri, a dark god of the Abyss. The shaggy glabrezu stomped across the adytum and looked down at the quivering Fool.

  ROMAR, THE FOOL! The tanar’ri lord roared its demonic laughter. Smoke curled from its lips and nostrils.

  With the swipe of one impossibly large hand, the glabrezu knocked Cwelanas from the Fool’s grasp and sent her hurtling against the kender’s shield. Cwelanas had time to cry out once as her bones shattered against the impenetrable shield, then she fell to the bubble’s base, unconscious.

  Blood pooled around her head. Her face was scarred with gashes from the glabrezu’s claws. Gaye instantly enlarged the bubble to take in Cwelanas, and CassaRoc bent to examine the elfs wounds.

  All felt the glabrezu’s voice pounding in their minds. ROMAR! YOUR TIME HAS COME! The Fool cowered behind the Cloakmaster’s throne. His bony hands were crossed protectively in front of him. OUR CONTRACT IS CONCLUDED! YOUR SOUL IS MINE!

  The glabrezu reached out with one of its pincers. The Fool shrank down to his knees, and the long pincer raked across the Fool’s cheek, drawing a line of thin black blood. The Fool raised his puny hands in supplication to the tanar’ri.

  “Lord Mowg, no, I beseech you – the phylactery, that one broke it, there —” The Fool pointed at the unconscious Cwelanas. “It was not meant —”

  The glabrezu’s other pincer lashed out and grasped the Fool by the neck. Lord Mowg lifted the Fool to face him. The other pincer came up, and the glabrezu plunged the sharp points deep into the Fool’s hollow eyes.

  The Fool jerked electrically in the tanar’ri’s grasp. Bolts of blue energy – the Fool’s ill-spent life force – shimmered through Mowg’s pincers and into his monstrous body. The Fool’s already shrunken body seemed to tighten in on itself. The glabrezu smiled with contentment, lapping at the Fool’s dark force, flicking its tongue at the lifeless husk that was the Fool.

  With a final, convulsive shudder, the Fool found true death in Lord Mowg’s blistering grip. The glabrezu’s mouth gaped wide, and it stuffed the Fool’s body between his jaws, impossibly accommodating the lich’s girth as though it were but a morsel. It swallowed, growling, its evil power resonating off the walls like a low hum.

  Then Mowg faced the humans.

  It lashed out at the shield. Gaye’s image grimaced as the glabrezu’s blow hammered at the barrier, and she concentrated, letting the shield grow stronger in her mind.

  Lord Mowg stepped back and swiped a claw through the air. The fiend roared with amusement, filling the adytum with its raucous, barking laughter.

  The tanar’ri placed one clawed foot into the ring of power and climbed inside. The glabrezu sank through the doorway of fire, laughing. The gate closed with a final explosion of fire, and Mowg, a lord of the tanar’ri, was gone from the Prime Material plane.

  The Cloakmaster stepped off the dais. Gaye dropped her psionic shield, and the Cloakmaster stepped over to Cwelanas and placed his hands upon her head.

  She glowed from within, infused with the combined energies of the Cloakmaster and the Spelljammer. He felt her wounds, the flow of her blood, and, with a thought, his energies healed the glabrezu’s damage and pulled her up from the bliss of unconsciousness.

  Djan woke with but a single, healing touch. The Cloakmaster kept his hand on the half-elfs head. He jerked once as a spark of power opened his mind.

  “What was that?” Djan asked.

  The Cloakmaster went to each of the warriors in turn, finishing with Estriss, then he helped Cwelanas to her feet and touched her head as well. Her forehead glowed at the touch of his fingertips.

  “The Spelljammer has magic of its own,” the Cloakmaster said. “I have released you from its spell, a spell of protection that all aboard have fallen under. Now you may leave.”

  “Leave?” Chaladar said. “We cannot. The Spelljammer needs our protection.”

  The Cloakmaster held up a hand. “I do not have much time like this,” he said. “Much must be done, and there is much to explain.”

  “Teldin,” Cwelanas said, looking at the wound in his chest, “are you...?”

  He nodded. “I am one with the Spelljammer now. I am not as I was before. I know what has to be done. I know how our destinies have been intertwined. I know what our purpose is”

  “Your quest, then?” CassaRoc inquired. “You have found your answers?”

  Teldin nodded. “To questions I never knew existed.”

  Cwelanas went to him and stared into his glowing eyes. “Is it you? Is it really you, Teldin? Or is it the Spelljammer?’

  As she watched, the glow in his eyes faded, and his eyes returned to normal. He smiled down at her. “It is I, Cwelanas. It’s still me.”

  Djan said, “Now what? What happens next?”

  “The Spelljammer is being surrounded by the fleets of our enemies. Even though they are also fighting among themselves, their forces are great and we may not survive their attack.” The Cloakmaster paused. “In
fact, I’m sure of it.”

  “You couldn’t have become captain of the ship just to see it destroyed,” CassaRoc said. “There must be a reason.”

  “Oh, there is,” The Cloakmaster said, “but it’s far more complicated than that. Soon the Spelljammer will be no longer – at least, not as we know it. We are giving you a chance to live.”

  “Oh, no,” CassaRoc said loudly. “We didn’t come all this way to see you sacrifice yourself to save us. No, we’re staying with you.”

  “You have it wrong,” the Cloakmaster said. “There will be no sacrifice, CassaRoc, not really. Things simply will be... very different. You have to trust me.”

  “What’s going to happen?” Na’Shee asked.

  Teldin placed his hands on Cwelanas’s arms. “I have bonded with the ship. We are one. The Spelljammer’s life cycle is beginning anew, and in the gardens you will find the only means to your survival. By the time you get there, a smalljammer will have been created.

  “There is time enough to create only a single ship. It is essential that you escape on board the smalljammer. You must protect it at all costs. It may be this universe’s only chance to create life... if this Unhuman War is lost.”

  “Create life?” Cwelanas said. “Teldin, I don’t want to leave you. I can’t just —”

  “Cwelanas,” Teldin said softly, “in time, you will understand. You and the smalljammer have a purpose, a common destiny. I give the ship to you. You must sail to freedom, to life.”

  The Cloakmaster reached into his belt and held out the shirt of chain mail that he had found in the neogi tower. “Your mail,” he said. “With the Spelljammer’s help, I have granted your mail the power of an ultimate helm and more. Wear this. Take the smalljammer and sail to safety. It is your only hope.” Cwelanas took the mail from the Cloakmaster’s hands. Instantly, she felt the amulet’s power surge through her, through the mail.

  “Is this how it felt to you?” she asked.

  “Yes. You now bear the smalljammer’s ultimate helm.” Her mouth hung open. “You are now the First Pilot of your smalljammer,” Teldin said, “and you must go where the winds of destiny take you.”

  And you, Teldin? Estriss inquired. What will happen to you?

  “My destiny has been written. I brought to the Spelljammer the Cloak of the First Pilot. I am the Spelljammer’s last.”

  “I don’t understand what that means,” Djan said.

  “You must go. I have a duty to perform, one diat has waited for a thousand centuries. You... you must live.”

  Teldin placed his hands around Gaye’s astral form, and she glowed fiercer, more brightly than ever before. “I will need your help,” he said.

  “Does it have to happen this way?” Cwelanas asked. Her eyes pleaded with him. “Teldin, we need you. I need you.”

  “You know what you must do,” the Cloakmaster said gently. “Verenthestae.”

  She nodded reluctantly. “But you...?”

  The Cloakmaster looked up and smiled at each of his friends in turn. “You have all been great friends. Djan, Chal-adar, Na’Shee, go in peace, and learn. CassaRoc, be well. You are a great warrior for good, though you may not know it. And Estriss... may you find your answers, as I have found mine.”

  He looked down into Cwelanas’s eyes. Slowly he bent to kiss her. Their lips met. Cwelanas tasted her own tears on her tongue. She knew it was the last kiss that she and Teldin would share.

  The Cloakmaster pulled away and stepped onto the dais. “Go now. Live.” He lifted Stardawn’s body with one hand and threw it to them. “Cast it from the roof of the Armory. Let the races know that the new captain has come.” He sat upon the throne.

  Gaye floated over to wait beside the Cloakmaster’s shoulder. The warriors filed slowly out of the chamber, Stardawn’s body hefted over CassaRoc’s shoulder, and they disappeared down the entrance hall. Cwelanas was the last to go. She nodded once, wept silently, then ran from the room.

  Behind her, in the adytum, the eyes of the Cloakmaster glowed with an inner light, and the mark of the Compass burned fiercely inside his flesh. The opening to the chamber closed in upon itself.

  — We are done, he said, and his body slowly began to fade away.

  — My friends will survive. Many humans will be saved.

  — That is good.

  — Gaye will help.

  — That is good.

  — But the unhumans...

  — Perhaps... that is also good.

  — But we were destined to preserve, not destroy.

  — The children of the Sh’tarrgh are the antithesis of life. To preserve, we must destroy.

  Teldin thought quietly, then decided.

  — That is good.

  Gaye began to fade, following the Cloakmaster’s unspoken commands. In a few moments, the only thing left in the adytum was the captain’s throne. Smoke curled up from the back of the chair, where the pattern of the Compass had been seared into the stone.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “... The One Egg shattered from the inside, and its shell was cast out upon the flow like seeds in the wind.

  “Only one thing survived, that which bears its curse even today, and will one day be punished for its sins against the gods and man...”

  The Old Book, handed down through legend;

  recorded in the reign of Night Walker.

  The flow was a battleground, a sea of fighting.

  Ships swooped past the Spelljammer, grappled together in their thick ropes and firing ballistae at each other mercilessly. A hammership banked just outside the Spelljammer’s air envelope and fired its catapults toward the ship. Most of the boulders missed completely, passing harmlessly though the air bubble to fall toward the Broken Sphere on the other side of the ship, but one load of boulders hurtled toward the Spelljammer and thundered into the Elven High Command, sending heavy chunks of stone to the deck far below. The top floors of the command stood shattered, like a broken chimney, and the golden dragon standard that had flown at the pinnacle of the tower lay in a hundred twisted pieces across the roofs of the dwarven citadel and the Communal Church of Wildspace. Rubble littered the streets, and the elves unlucky enough to have been stationed on the roof fell to their deaths and splattered on the deck.

  The warring between the races had stopped suddenly, as soon as the intercepting ships had begun firing at the Spelljammer. The warring factions on the ship had realized that the Spelljammer needed to be defended. The fighters had all disengaged and raced to their respective communities, where weapons such as catapults and ballistae were armed and readied for retaliation against the newcomers from the flow.

  The streets of the Spelljammer lay empty, save for debris and the bodies of the dead and slowly dying. Blood was spattered on the walls of the ship’s towers and collected in wide puddles in the uneven streets. The warring now went on high above the towers and would soon be joined by the natural defenses of the legendary Spelljammer.

  Deep within the entity, the Cloakmaster felt all and saw all through the Spelljammer’s magical senses. It was as though his arms were the Spelljammer’s wings; his feet, its tail; its eyes, his eyes. As they slowly circled the Broken Sphere and swept aside the debris of broken ships, he felt splintered wood and cracked shell brush harmlessly along his wings like minuscule insects. He shuddered as the giff’s bombard rang out upon the Spelljammer’s back. He blinked as a wasp ship exploded in front of his eyes. He felt warmth as the peoples spread out across his back came together in his defense, almost becoming one with the purpose of the ship.

  He watched and heard and felt the other ships around him. Their movement through the phlogiston was like wind rushing between his fingers. Boulders hurtled by catapults felt to him like gentle rain, and the missiles that rushed past him were less than a light breeze. The ships that exploded, or were destroyed by spells, were nothing more than gusts of heat upon his face.

  So many races were represented: Shou, elves, illithids, neogi, humans, giff, halflings
, dwarves, orcs and scro, beholders, minotaurs... He felt them all, from B’Laath’a, the cunning neogi that had tortured Cwelanas, to the asteroid of dwarves who had allied themselves with the halflings. They were ready to die, either in defense of themselves or their friends, or in a futile attempt to take the Spelljammer. The Cloakmaster realized that, to them, it just did not matter. It was the beginning of a war that had been long in coming, and the unhumans would not stop until they overran the universe with their war machines and humanity was enslaved or extinguished.

  — How many more must die? Teldin asked.

  — Only those whose deaths are decreed by destiny, and by their own twisted desires.

  — How many?

  The Spelljammer paused. — Most.

  — Must we...?

  — It has been ordained. The cycle must begin anew. What was, will be again.

  The Cloakmaster watched as the universe around him seemed to run black with death, like the rats that had attacked him in the Tower of Thought.

  A tradesman and a nautiloid seemed to join as the nautiloid swung close enough to scrape the tradesman’s side in a shearing attack that ripped off its starboard wings and shaved its mainmast into a mere splinter. Then the tradesman’s deck became crowded with its halfling crew, shooting flaming arrows through the conjoined air envelopes to ignite inside the nautiloid’s chambered hull. Black smoke joined the phlogiston in its endless swirl. Small explosions broke out as the arrows ignited the flow, sending shockwaves across the small ships’ decks.

  Off to port, an illithid dreadnought turned and aimed its weapons at the Spelljammer. Ten ballistae fired from the Spelljammer’s port batteries, then ten more from starboard. Then the dreadnought was torn by seven unyielding missiles. The ship spun crazily above the Spelljammer, looking more like a pin cushion than a fearsome illithid vessel.

  To the Cloakmaster, it was as though someone had flung open the gates of the Abyss to let the fiendish lords run free.

  — Don’t they realize that the captain has come? Don’t they realize that the ship cannot be theirs?

  — Some know, some don’t, but it no longer matters. They fight because it is their way. Their song is one of conquest. Our song is one of peace.