The Ultimate Helm

Chapter Thirteen

After speaking with Cwelanas in her quarters, Teldin went downstairs to watch CassaRoc and Chaladar, the paladin, put their warriors through sword practice and hand-to-hand combat. Then they went to the tower's armory and checked the condition of the weapons. A feeling of anxiety had come upon him suddenly, as soon as word had reached the tower of the meeting going on in the beholder ruins. The possible alliance of the beholders with the minotaurs, ogres, and hill giants meant only trouble for the humans under the flag of the Cloakmaster. "Nothing good can come of this," CassaRoc said. Chaladar grunted once, and his hand settled on the hilt of his sword. "They are preparing for war. All of them, the unhumans." CassaRoc smiled. "Ah, well. What does it matter? With the warriors of all the Human Collective, and our Unhuman allies, they will not stand a chance. Ahh, I like a good fight."

Teldin's chest suddenly grew tight and warm. He stopped in midstride.

"What's wrong?" Chaladar asked.

"This is wrong," Teldin said, clutching his chest. CassaRoc came up and looked him over. Chaladar said, "Are you well?"

"I have to do something," Teldin said, "get out. We're doing nothing here but talking. I need to- to roam. The adytum. I need to find the Spelljammer's adytum."

They went to the common room and sat at a table. "Perhaps its time you did some exploring," CassaRoc said. "A few of our warriors, with you in disguise

Teldin said abruptly, "It's in that direction." CassaRoc turned from the tap. Teldin was standing, pointing a finger at the tower wall.

"That's toward the stern," Chaladar said slowly. "How do you know?"

Teldin shook his head. "I don't know. It's just a feeling…" He looked down at the amulet, where he clutched his chest, and felt a shock ripple across his skin. "Paladine's blood! What…?"

He ripped open his shirt.

Above his heart, his skin glowed in the shape of the amulet, j j The flesh was warm, pulsating with a tingle of gentle heat. "The design!" Teldin said.

A pattern, a maze inside the circular ring, glowed on his chest. He remembered the message from Gaye: Follow the woven heart.

"This is how I find it," he said. " 'Follow the woven heart.' Somehow, this is a map… no, a compass, that will lead me to the adytum."

CassaRoc came over and placed his finger on the glowing pattern. "I don't feel a thing." "It's warm," Teldin said. "Not to me. Is it always like this?"

"This is the first time I've seen it." He thought for a moment. "No. I saw it in a dream. But I don't think it was really a dream."

CassaRoc looked questioningly at Chaladar, then back to Teldin. "Maybe it's time to go looking for this… adytum of yours."

"Maybe," Teldin said, "but I don't know what to do once I get there. Perhaps a visit to the library tower would be best."

A guard then entered the room and told CassaRoc that an elven messenger had arrived with a decision. The leaders decided to go down and receive the elf alone, as he had been ordered to hurry back to the Elven High Command and assist in the battle against the goblins.

Several minutes later, Teldin nervously paced the confines of CassaRoc's common room, waiting for CassaRoc and Chaladar to return.

Despite his host's generosity and the increasing trust and loyalty of his warriors, Teldin was growing increasingly claustrophobic inside the Tower of Thought. It had been hours since his conversation with Cwelanas, and the uncertainty of the entire situation on board the Spelljammer had begun to gnaw at him..

He did not crave action or bloodshed; he simply wanted to get out of the damned tower and explore, to search, to finally do what he had come here for.

He touched his amulet and watched the light reflect off its engraved surface. Is this the feeling Estriss had asked about? The yearning to be active, to search for his answers out there, among the others?

Is this the call?

He walked behind the bar and poured himself a mug of cold water, then gulped down half the mug and filled it up again.

The desire to leave, to get something done, burned at him like the sign of the amulet upon his chest.

He looked up suddenly and cocked his head. There had been a noise from somewhere outside, like a clap of thunder, or an explosion. Out in the hall he heard shouting and the sound of the warriors' feet as they rushed to their positions throughout the tower.

He flung open the door. "What's going on?" he shouted.

There were cries from above, then a warrior rushed by. Teldin reached out and grabbed his arm. "Wait. What's happening?"

The fighter gasped, then managed, "The neogi. They've started fighting the neogi." Then he turned and ran up the tower stairs.

Teldin heard more warriors rushing up the stairs, then CassaRoc and Chaladar ran up beside him. "The war has definitely begun," CassaRoc said. "Chaladar's scouts spied the start of the battle not five minutes ago. The beholders, the minotaurs, and the ogres just couldn't wait. They're all in it together."

"They're in the neogi tower now," Chaladar said. "They may not be able to hold it. Already a fire has started. The explosion blackened the face of the beholder ruins. The minotaurs are struggling to put it out, but who knows what will happen with this war? Their pointless battles may destroy us all."

"What are we going to do?" Teldin asked.

"Nothing," CassaRoc said. "Absolutely nothing… yet." He held up a folded piece of paper, decorated with a broken seal of red wax. "A communique from our friends, the elves."

He cleared his throat. " "We, the Elven High Command of the Sphere Wanderer Spelljammer, do hereby promise all aid and assistance during the coming times of war to the Cloakmaster, Teldin Moore. We do hereby sign in treaty with the Cloakmaster and his allies, the Human Collective, to fight to the death our mortal enemies, and to ensure the safety and purity of the elven race.' "

"And it's signed by Stardawn and the elven leader himself, Admiral Drova Highstar."

Teldin took it from CassaRoc and read it, though slowly. Teldin had never read very much, nor very well. "Can we believe this?"

Chaladar shrugged. "Personally, I trust very few people. These elves think they're needed everywhere, or nothing would get done. Frankly, I'd rather have them with us than against us, but I don't want them at all.

"Ah, well. The Human Collective will never fall, even if the elves fight against us."

"And Stardawn?" Teldin said.

"Trust your mind flayer friend on that," CassaRoc said. "Stardawn is his own man. He has his own agenda."

"What does that mean?" Chaladar inquired.

"'Means I wouldn't trust him farther than I could spit," CassaRoc said.

" 'He's mad that trusts in the honor of an elf.' "

They both stared at Chaladar.

He shrugged. "Poetry. I read it somewhere."

The Cloakmaster spoke to himself. "They're all so formal and proper, the elves, but in the end," he said, crumpling the message, "it's just a piece of paper."

Chaladar nodded. "Well said."

CassaRoc finished the ale he had earlier left on the table. He made a face; it had grown too warm. "Come on," he said. "Why don't we go up to the Guild tower and take a look?"

Teldin said, "At what?"

CassaRoc smiled. "The battle with the neogi. We can see over the ship from the top of the Guild. With luck, the neogi and the others will kill each other off. Maybe we won't have to fight them at all."

"Too bad," Chaladar said, smiling grimly. "Too bad."

CassaRoc led the way down into the lower floors of the tower. There, a series of passages led to the other human towers, and across into the cavernous Human Collective.

Leoster's guards recognized CassaRoc and Chaladar and let the three men pass. Within the Guild tower, Teldin saw many of King Leoster's fellow nobles going about their daily duties; but many more were occupied with activities that clearly fell beyond their chores as noble warriors: gardening, researching such topics as the temperatures of differing wildspace and the tooth sizes of Unhuman races, and collecting games and ancient books. One noble, a council member named Charnom, even boasted an extensive collection of jokes from across the known spheres… most of which were off-color, and had to do with buxom females of all the known races,

At the top of the Guild tower, six guards had been posted, keeping watch on all sides. The Rainbow Ocean was a flare of brilliant colors, a swirling chaos surrounding the Spelljammer on all sides. Teldin, CassaRoc, and Chaladar went to the starboard side and peered over the roofs of the other buildings, toward the neogi tower. CassaRoc pointed. "There. Do you see?" Teldin was instead looking for the trail of wreckage left by the Julia across the Spelljammer's wing. He felt a sense of loss, of innocence left behind, but he could not find the wreckage on the wing; it appeared that some great hand had swooped down and cleared away the charred debris.

"There!" Chaladar cried. Teldin turned and saw a plume of black smoke rising into the ship's huge air bubble from a thick, round tower at the stern. A band of minotaurs was struggling to put out what was left of the fire before the resulting explosions of phlogiston brought the tower down upon their heads.

"They better get that out soon," CassaRoc said. "The Spelljammer could be in trouble if the flow were to explode too much."

The warriors watched for a while, but the real battle had been pushed into the tower. One of Chaladar's guards said that the ogres had forced their way inside, cutting senselessly through a flank of about twenty neogi and their umber hulks. The reptilian neogi had retreated into their tower, followed quickly by the attacking ogres and their monstrous allies. Even from this great distance, Teldin could easily make out pools of blood spattering the deck.

For the first time, Teldin had a chance to admire the spiral-ing towers and the mixture of architecture spread out along the Spelljammer's, immense back. The flow played like fire along the golden spires and glistened off the winged statue atop the horned tower. He felt the amulet calling him, pushing him toward the tail of the ship. The symbol burned at his chest; now that he could see his goal, the Spelljammer's call seemed even stronger.

They decided they had had enough, and they made their way back through the Guild tower, then into the collective and into the lowest level of the Tower of Thought. HarKenn, one of CassaRoc's guards, nodded as they entered. He bore several large weapons upon his leather belt and had smaller weapons hidden under his cloak and in his boots. His helmet was of an odd design, and the light shone off it in multicolored flashes.

The warriors passed and were near the doorway to the second level when they heard screams from below. They instantly wheeled about and ran back the way they had come.

The screams and shouts grew louder, and they stopped HarKenn as he stumbled up the stairs, and fell into the Cloakmaster's arms, bleeding from almost a hundred tiny wounds along his thick legs.

Teldin shook him while Chaladar reached for a light rod fastened to the wall. "HarKenn, what is it man? What happened to you?" Then Chaladar held up the light rod, and CassaRoc saw all the blood, painting the warrior's legs so that his wounds were nearly invisible.

HarKenn's eyes were wide with fear. Teldin held the light up and peered the way HarKenn had come, up from the shadows.

CassaRoc slapped the guard. His whimpering stopped. "HarKenn, tell us! Who did this to you?"

In Chaladar's light, they could see black movement on the stairs below, moving rapidly toward them like a rippling sea of fur. Sparks of white light glared at them angrily.

Teldin said, "CassaRoc,…"

HarKenn began to mumble. Spittle bubbled in the corner of his mouth. Without warning, he reached out and grabbed Teldin's tunic. His grip was like that of a vise, and he pulled Teldin into his face.

"The rats!" HarKenn shouted. His eyes gleamed with the pure light of madness. "The rats in the walls! They're chewing their way out!"