The Ultimate Helm

Chapter Eleven

Leoster IV, king of the Guild tower, stayed with Cwelanas for more than three hours- time spent purging the noxious evils that had been twisted throughout Cwelanas's mind.

The damage to her mind was undeniably the work of a powerful neogi mage; the bright tattoo was proof enough of neogi handiwork, but its placement was unnecessary; the tattoo was nonfunctional, simply a sign of the black mage's sadistic ego and his hatred for humanity.

At first, Cwelanas was restrained to the bed with ropes, and her injured arm was strapped to her stomach. Later, Leoster kept her calm with spells and absorbed some of her pain with his own considerable empathic skills. He felt her horror blossom like a blood-red pinpoint of fire as he saw what the neogi had put Cwelanas through, as he felt her mind being raped by the neogi and twisted to murder the man she loved.

Leoster screamed out with her once, tied by her pain and fear. The guards rushed in, thinking the neogi spy had done something horrible to the old man, and they gaped at the arcane sigils drawn upon the walls in what looked like blood and chalk, at the intricate patterns etched in saltpeter and ground bones upon the floor, at the flickering balls of light floating brightly at her head and hands and feet. Leoster, drenched with sweat, seemed feral, no longer a man born of nobility, the head of a royal house. His body was taut and shivering with the strain of sucking the evils from Cwelanas's soul. He stared at the guards and shouted through bared teeth, "Get out! Get out now, or she will be lost to us!"

The guards backed out slowly, staring at the elf's half-closed eyes, swirling inside with a pale blue mist. They closed the door behind them, and stood outside with their swords ready. Never again would they consider Leoster anything less than a true king.

Leoster came out a long time later. His face was drawn and pale, seemingly a decade older than when he had gone into her room. But he stood proudly, confident that the elf had been saved. Under his care, her seizures of murderous rage had been quelled, and he had put her under a spell of sleep, so that his magic could more easily work its way through her mind and cleanse her of all evil influence.

Teldin paced outside the door. Leoster shook his head, beaded with sweat. "They did their work on her, I grant you, Cloakmaster. For a while there, I thought she would be lost forever."

He looked into Teldin's face. "Part of her didn't want to live, not after what she tried to do to you. You'll need to take care of that, I think. I've done all I can do, all anyone can do. Her elven strength helped her. If she had been human, I doubt she would have survived the neogi magic."

He placed a hand on Teldin's shoulder. "Now, if you love her- and if these old eyes of mine can still see right, I think you do- you have to bring her back. Show her you care, that you understand it wasn't her. That's what she's afraid of: that you won't forgive her."

Teldin nodded silently, then thanked the king for coming. Leoster quickly admonished him to let Cwelanas sleep for a while. "Don't go in just yet. She needs her rest," Leoster said. "She needs to heal. There will be time enough for reconciliations."

Teldin let her sleep for several hours before his concern for her got the better of him. He left a meeting with CassaRoc and Chaladar and climbed the stairs to her quarters.

Two armed guards stood outside in the corridor. Teldin thought they were unnecessary, but CassaRoc had insisted, as a precaution. "Look what happened last time," he had said. Teldin reached for the door.

The room smelled of incense and medicine. He closed the door behind him and stood over her, watching her face in the light from the flow.

Her hair was damp and stringy, where she had perspired heavily during her struggles against Leoster's magic. Her face seemed thinner, paler, and she breathed peacefully in her sleep.

Her wrist bones had been healed by CassaRoc's healers, but her arm was heavily bandaged as a precaution, and had been salved with a numbing potion. The sheets had fallen to reveal her shoulders, the swell of her breasts. He reached to cover her, then stared in rising anger at the brand that would forever mar her once-perfect flesh.

Teldin knew he would kill the neogi bastard who had marked her. For once, Teldin wanted blood on his hands.

He brought the sheets around her neck and sat down in a wooden chair near the bunk. He watched Cwelanas for a few minutes, then let his eyes close as he rested. Far too much had happened to him already, and he had been aboard the Spelljammer for only a day. Now he felt it in his bones, and the soft light and the smells relaxed him, washed over him like a spell.

He woke to a gentle touch on his knee. He pulled himself up and smiled at Cwelanas, who had reached out and awakened him. He held her hand in his, felt her cool, soft skin against his calloused palm.

They spoke simultaneously.

"How do you feel?" he said.

"Are you all right?" said she.

Cwelanas smiled weakly. "I'm sorry," she whispered. A tear formed in the corner of her eye.

Teldin bent over and kissed her hand. "You didn't do anything, you know that. It was the neogi."

He could see in her golden eyes that, yes, she knew that, but she still held herself responsible.

He ran his hand along her face. "You have to stop blaming yourself. You had no control over what they did to you."

She wept softly then, into Teldin's hand. He wiped her face with a cool, damp cloth.

"You don't know how I fought them," she said quietly. "You don't know what they did to me."

Teldin looked into her eyes and said nothing. What could he say? He had been through a neogi torture session himself, not long after his quest had begun. He knew first-hand their innate hatred of other races, their inbred egotism that labeled other lives simply as "meat."

He knew the pain he heard when his bones had cracked, when he had tasted the warm tang of his own blood.

He knew.

He held her in his arms. There was nothing to say.

After a while, she told him what had really happened to her after their parting at Sancrist. Her voice was flat and emotionless, toneless, as though the telling were merely mechanical, a way of purging herself of the black neogi poisons. But it was more than that. She felt drained, empty, worthless. She could feel nothing, right now, except shame. How could Teldin feel anything for her if she could feel nothing herself?

"I told the truth about the wildspace pirates," she began, "of Krynnspace. But not all of it.

"They captured me not long after you left. They wanted your cloak, and somehow- I never found out how- they tracked me down. They thought I knew where you went, and why.

"They kept me for several days, until we were overtaken by a squadron of neogi ships outside Krynnspace- deathspiders and a mindspider. The pirates had no chance. The neogi forces were larger and stronger, and the pirates were easily killed.

"The neogi wanted me, too, to hunt down the cloak. I was tortured." She choked up. Teldin handed her a mug of cold water. "I told them nothing, for I had no idea where you were. Then their commander, B'Laath'a, decided to… make me a slave… mentally.

"He went inside my mind for information. Then he planted things there. He tried to subvert me. He wanted you dead, to get the cloak. The neogi know all about ultimate helms, and how they guide their bearers out into space. They knew it was only a matter of time until you reached the Spelljammer. It was your destiny, even they could see that.

"I was their last chance to seize the Spelljammer. One neogi ship brought me here, just myself and B'Laath'a. I don't know how he found the Spelljammer from so far away, but B'Laath'a is an evil mage, and I know he made sacrifices to get the gods to give him information.

"He deliberately set me adrift in the phlogiston, right in the Spelljammer's path. B'Laath'a landed here. After he ingratiated himself with Master Coh, the two of them made sure that the humans discovered me in the flow. He knew they would try to rescue me, and then I'd be planted in the community where you would first be accepted.

"I lost track of how long we waited for you to arrive. They used to smuggle me through a secret passage into Coh's quarters in the neogi tower. They never let up, pushing themselves into my mind with their spells…

"I fought against them, Teldin. I did, I swear I did. Even as I was trying to kill you, I was struggling inside to control myself, to take control of my actions. I've never felt so powerless. And all that time, I was trying to scream at you, to warn you, to make myself just let go of the dagger…"

She was quiet for so long then that Teldin thought she had fallen asleep in his arms. Then she said, "He marked me."

Her eyes glazed over. "He kept me awake while he did it, to make sure I understood that I was property, his property." She paused. "It burned. He laughed at me as he marked me. He made a joke about how it would make my flesh tender, tastier."

"I think our mages can take it off," Teldin said softly.

Cwelanas was silent, then she shifted away from him and turned to face the wall.

"What is it?" Teldin asked.

He heard her sniffle into the sheets. "How can you even stand to be with me, after what I did'"

"You didn't do it. In all of this, you are innocent. You've just been another pawn of the neogi, and, believe me, they will pay for hurting you."

He knew when he said it that his feelings for her were more than friendship, even more than simple attraction. He wanted revenge against the black-hearted creatures, because he had cared for Cwelanas for a long time, had cared for her more than he had ever known. Now, seeing her huddled beside him and so vulnerable, marked with her shame both mentally and physically, he realized he truly loved her.

He chided himself for being so dense, so caught up in his quest, that he had not immediately recognized it as love. And he wondered if he would be feeling this way now if it hadn't been for his dream of Gaye Goldring and her cryptic messages. Yes, the trust for Cwelanas was there, and he knew it was not misplaced; but he was not sure he could have acknowledged his emotions if the dream had not slapped him awake.

Or had it been a dream?

No, he realized, it was not a dream. It had been Gaye, calling to him, he knew, but from where? All the way from Herd-space? And how? He shook his head, wondering if he would ever understand the true meaning of his journey, the simple "why" that had pulled him out into the endless sea of the flow.

Still, Gaye's thoughts had been of him, and of those he cared for. The mark will show the trust.

Aside from proving Cwelanas's innocence, did that also mean that Cwelanas cared for him? That he could trust in her love as well as her loyalty?

He was not sure, and he hated that; he had been too trustful in the past, and, although he wanted to trust Cwelanas with his life, after Rianna's treachery, and that of Aelfred Sil-verhorn, he knew he was scared, perhaps too scared, to fully trust anyone again.

He fought down his feelings of distrust and fear. He watched Cwelanas, lying on her side. Her chest was rising slowly, softly, and he knew that she had fallen asleep again. Cwelanas had suffered torture and mental rape and had gone through what would have been too much for him, more than he could have expected of anyone. Now he knew he must go through the fire for her.

He smiled and gently disentangled himself from her. He tucked her in and kissed the side of her head.

He watched her for another minute, then he whispered, in a voice so soft that he could hardly hear it himself, "I love you."

He closed the door behind him.

But Cwelanas had not been asleep at all, and her heart had thudded like thunder when she had heard him confess his love.

She wanted to spin around and reach out for him, shouting his name, and have him take her up in his arms and hold her tight, so the pain, the memories of the sharp instruments of the neogi, would all go away.

She heard the metallic click of the door latch. She turned as she heard his feet echo down the corridor. But she could not reach out, she could not cry his name. She had hurt him too much; and now, no matter what he had said, she knew that he belonged here, fulfilling his quest on the Spelljammer, and that anything he once felt for her would be better left forgotten.

For how could he really love someone who had tried to kill him?

Forget him, she thought. He'll never be yours. You don't deserve him.

When she finally fell back to sleep, her pillows were dark with her tears.