The Ultimate Helm

Chapter Eight

The woman who stood proudly inside the entrance to the beholder ruins was beautiful by human standards. She was tall and muscular, and her deep red hair cascaded like a river over her shoulders and shone crimson in the dim light of the ruins' faltering light panels. The patch over her left eye added an exotic quality to her lean face, and the sharp silver symbol in its center gleamed like a polished blade.

A beholder of a lower caste floated toward her. Four tiny eyes, unblinking, stared at her. "Lord Gray Eye will see you now," it said, and it led her toward the leader's chamber. On the way, they passed minotaur guards, positioned at doorways and carrying out orders for their new masters.

Selura Killcrow smiled. She could feel the excitement of the upcoming war already vibrating in her bones, and she licked her ruby lips in anticipation.

The beholder stopped beside a great door and motioned with an eyestalk. The minotaur guard opened the door, and Selura stepped in.

The eye tyrant floated leisurely above his dais, his ioun crystals slowly orbiting around him. Gray Eye smiled. A line of blood oozed from between his sharp teeth, and Selura saw the spattered mess of raw meat that the beholder was eating from a large plate beneath it. Large rib bones poked out, dripping with dark blood.

"Ahh," Gray Eye said. Its voice was low, emanating scratchily. "Welcome to the once proud Kingdom of the Beholders," the great eye said. "The once proud, and soon to be proud again." The creature laughed, and its laughter was the coarse sound of grinding bones.

Selura forced a smile and approached. The stench of the raw meat was overpowering, and she wondered how long it had sat rotting. "I see you have done well in your first conquest," she said. "Congratulations."

The beholder dismissed her. "Bah, We should have done it years ago. They're so simple. Minotaurs. Stupid, ugly creatures."

"But good slaves," Selura offered.

"Excellent," Gray Eye agreed. He gestured to the plate below him. "Better meat." He laughed.

Selura suppressed a shudder. As leader of the Long Fangs and the proprietor of the Sharptooth Common Room, she had to deal with the vilest members of all the Spelljammer's races. The eye tyrant was no less and no greater an evil than anyone else who patronized her tavern; but the sight of the rancid meat, and its stench, curdled her stomach, and she wondered what type of being could willingly, happily eat that.

It doesn't matter, she thought. He'll be dead soon. They'll all be dead.

"What do you want, human?" Gray Eye asked abruptly. A huge piece of meat hung from between two ragged teeth.

"I have something I think you might want," she said.

The beholder's tongue flicked out and sucked the chunk of meat back into its mouth. "What might you possibly have that would be of interest to the beholders?" he said around the flesh in his mouth.

Selura walked slowly around the room, pretending to admire the torn and rotting tapestries, the obvious signs of violence and war that scarred the chamber. Gray Eye watched her, then sighed. "Enough theatrics, woman. What do you have?"

Selura fingered a faded, ancient tapestry depicting a victory of the beholders in a battle on Legadda, a planet located in Icespace. She knew nothing of its history, nor of the crystal sphere in which the original battle had taken place.

"Ruins," she said to the beholder. "Everything here is in ruins."

Gray Eye grunted. "You speak the obvious, human." His voice was like the crunch of gravel. "What are you getting at?"

She smiled a seductive human smile, one that had sent men willingly to their deaths, and hoped it would work on the beholder. "Revenge, Gray Eye. You want revenge."

The beholder watched her with its large, milky eye. "So. You want to sell me revenge. For what?"

"Revenge," she said sweetly, "for the Blinding Rot."

Gray Eye floated silently. All his eyes turned to watch Selura.

Yes, he wanted revenge. They all wanted revenge. The onslaught of the Blinding Rot had decimated the beholder population on board the Spelljammer years ago. There had been more than a hundred of them; they had been the most powerful nation aboard the great ship, stronger than even the elves. Then the disease had come: the Blinding Rot.

One by one, the beholders' eyestalks withered, then fell off like dried twigs. Death followed soon thereafter, either naturally, or at another beholder's eyes.

The xenophobic beholders hated differences in their race and despised deformities so much that they would kill. After the Blinding Rot had destroyed half the population on the Spelljammer, most of the handicapped survivors were slaughtered by their brethren, for fear of the Rot and for hatred of the unfit. A handful survived, mostly on hatred and dreams of revenge against those who had brought this doom to their race.

And, of course, there were the… unspeakables…

Until now, they had only suspicions about who had infected the race with the Rot. Now an opportunity for blood revenge was at hand.

"You have proof?" Gray Eye asked.

Selura nodded.

"What do you want?"

"Only one thing," she said. "Your word that the beholder nation will not harm the Long Fangs in any way during the coming war. You will leave us alone, in peace."

Gray Eye considered. "That can be done," he said. "It is agreed. Tell me."

She approached the dais and said softly, "The neogi."

The large, milky eye glared at her. "The neogi. We have long suspected that. What proof do you have?"

"A renegade neogi is with us at the Long Fangs' tower. He admitted the neogi plot to a confederate of mine not long ago."

"The neogi…" Gray Eye said. "How?"

"They infected a small portion of your food. The Rot was so contagious that it took only a few days to pass among you. By the time you learned of it, it was already too late."

Gray Eye nodded his huge body. "There shall be a truce between us during the war for the Spelljammer. The neogi bastards will be ours." He smiled. Light flickered off the shards that were his teeth.

Later, outside, in the warm light of the flow, Selura breathed deeply and relaxed. That went well, she thought. That went perfectly.

Soon war will break throughout the ship, and in all the chaos and lovely death, the Long Fangs will remain untouched. The fighting will be over, and the other forces will be ravaged when we finally reveal ourselves.

The ship will easily belong to the Long Fangs.

To me.