The Ultimate Helm

Chapter Twenty-Five

The illumination from the warrior band's light rods cast a warm glow upon the pale, purplish walls of the warrens. The walls felt spongy, almost warm to the touch, and Teldin understood why the warrens were sometimes called the veins, for they spread throughout the Spelljammer's body in a series of seemingly endless tunnels, twisting as though they were meant for lifeblood to course through them.

The tunnels widened once the warriors had made their way deeper into the ship, and they walked side by side, their weapons at the ready. Splotches of phosphorescent moonwort on the walls absorbed the light from their rods and glowed steadily after they had passed. Teldin, in the lead, paused occasionally at intersections, trying to peer as far as he could down the joining tunnels.

"How do you know where you're going?" Djan asked.

"I don't. I'm just trying to follow whatever trail I can find," Teldin said. "He's been down here a long time. I'm just looking for, well, a trail of darkness, I suppose."

"So you're going on instinct," CassaRoc offered.

"That's what I said."

"Do you feel anything from your amulet?"

Teldin caught CassaRoc's gaze and looked down. The glow from the amulet had ceased once they had passed into the warrens, and Teldin could feel nothing from it, as though its powers were muted down here. "No, nothing," Teldin said, "nothing at all."

Stardawn concentrated. Magic ran through his elven veins, and he reached out with a minor spell of detection. He pointed with his sword down a tunnel. "Farther in that direction. The taint comes from there."

They proceeded farther down. At one intersection, Teldin caught a wisp of black smoke curling in the distance, and he led the warriors toward it. At another intersection, each connecting tunnel except one was thickly layered with phosphorescent lichen. He chose the dark tunnel.

The Fool had designed his trap very well. '

Teldin led them down the tunnel, his light rod held high. The lichen here glowed red and brown, as though diseased. The tunnel walls seemed to close in, tapering so that the warriors could walk only in single file. The light from the rods seemed to grow dimmer, as though the brightness were being absorbed by the lining of the walls, or countered with a lasting spell of darkness.

"I don't like this," Djan said behind Teldin. "I don't like this at all."

"You think I-" Then Teldin clutched his chest and staggered against the wall. His mind went cold. Pinpricks of ice tingled across his chest. "Cold," he said weakly. "It-it's calling me, and it can't.. sense me here in the warrens. It is searching for me, but it hurts! '

The group stopped and waited while Teldin relaxed and the pain of the Spelljammer's summons faded. Then they started forward again as Teldin regained his composure, and they trudged steadily deeper.

Teldin knew they were close when he saw a thin layer of black mist curling around his feet. He stopped the group and warned them. "Can you feel that?" he asked. The air was chill and reeked of rotting flesh. "We're near his lair, I'm sure. Be ready for anything."

He stepped into the mist. It curled coldly up his legs as he led the party in, then it rose higher with every step, until it was so thick that they could not see before them.

Teldin's senses told him that they had stepped out of a tunnel and into some kind of chamber. He tensed, his ears alert. In the darkness, the light from the rods was practically insignificant, swallowed by the black mist, and he heard rustling, almost like the soft, shuffling footsteps of others, from somewhere deep in the mist around them.

He felt the rustle of a breeze on his arms, then the mist swirled and eddied around them, borne on a cold wind that sprang from some unknown source. Their light rods spread warm, yellow light upon nests of crumbling blankets and broken bones, into the narrow entrances of other tunnels, and upon weapons and chests and leather pouches heaped against the far wall. Teldin picked up a pair of discarded short swords and looked them over.

"Well, we've found something," CassaRoc said, staring at the wooden chest. He stepped forward cautiously and kneeled. He opened a chest, and the light from his rod was reflected in a million sparkles upon his face.

"Gold," he said softly. "Gold."

The chest was packed with gold and silver coins, with necklaces and amulets, brooches and bracelets. He plucked out a gold ring boasting an opaque green stone that bore a diamond-shaped carving, with angles emanating from two points. He smiled and pocketed the ring, then lifted out a dazzling necklace encrusted with rubies and emeralds. In the center, a silver disk had been engraved with symbols and jewels, and CassaRoc held it up to the light.

Teldin noticed the warrior's uncustomary frown. "What is it?" he queried.

"I know this necklace," CassaRoc said. "This used to belong to a fighter of mine."

"Damn!" Na'Shee shouted behind them. "That's Chel's! I know her!"

CassaRoc turned. "Knew her. She died when you arrived here, Teldin."

Teldin said nothing.

CassaRoc gave Na'Shee the necklace, while Stardawn and Djan looked through the chest. CassaRoc waved his sword around. "What is this place?" he asked.

"I don't know," Teldin said. "It looks like someone has been staying here." He picked up one of the bones on the floor. "I don't like their eating habits, though. This is a human bone."

They all heard them then, closing in from the intersecting tunnels. The gold and silver and jewels were forgotten in the rush to bring weapons to bear, to arrange themselves defensively in a circle as their assailants shambled in from the tunnels around them.

"The undead," CassaRoc announced.

The warriors were quickly surrounded by a score of the undead. Most were human; two were elves, and three were halflings. Some bore swords and daggers, ready to use them, albeit awkwardly, with a semblance of living memory. Most just stared hungrily at the intruders, ready to kill by tooth and jagged bone.

'

"This was a trap," Na'Shee said. "We were suckered in." Then one shape stepped from the farthest tunnel and stood in the entrance. Its teeth gleamed wickedly in the yellow light as it hissed with sadistic laughter. Its fur was mottled with blood, with the colors of the spectrum layered in dizzying patterns across its obscene body. An intricate series of circles was painted on its forehead.

"Trapped," the undead Coh said, snapping at them with his sharp yellow teeth. "Compliments of the Fool."

The zombie neogi turned then and plunged into the surrounding wall of mist.

The undead swarmed upon them.

The living sliced their way through the ranks of the undead with incredible ferocity. CassaRoc swore constantly as his sword cleaved through bone and dead flesh, severing heads and arms without conscious thought. He recognized two of the zombies, his own warriors who had died protecting Teldin from the neogi hordes: Chel, who once owned the jewel-studded necklace, and Gar, a fighter and merchant from the open market. He grimaced and killed them as mercifully as he could, staring at their long-dead faces as they lay together on the floor. "Sorry, my friends," he said.

Na'Shee left her crossbow hung at her waist and depended instead on the swiftness of her steel. She cut a swath through the undead forces, then spun around and came back, finishing off those who were still mobile with clean thrusts into their soft skulls or necks. When she was finished, she looked upon their peaceful faces and realized that she had sent friends of hers to their final, true deaths: K'aald, once a guard of Cassa-Roc's, and Jenn, from the Academy of Human Knowledge.

Na'Shee looked up and saw CassaRoc staring at his own dead compatriots on the floor, and wondered if undeath would happen to her as it had to their friends,… if the Fool were successful in his plans.

Djan was attacked by seven undead, who grappled with him and tore his sword from his hands. Stardawn saw the half-elfs plight and dispatched his own assailants with relative ease. He picked up an axe from the stack of weapons by the treasure chest and leaped into the fight, chopping through spinal columns and skulls as though they were made of twigs. Djan finally picked up his sword and, back to back, he and Stardawn fought off the zombies until most of the undead were a heap of bloody limbs jumbled at their feet.

Stardawn's last assailant was particularly strong and single-minded, virtually ignoring Stardawn's blows as one would the sting of a gnat. The elf was pressed against the wall, and the zombie's fetid hand was reaching for his neck when Stardawn realized that physical force would not be enough to finish the creature off. As the undead's fingers closed around his flesh, Stardawn whispered an ancient elven spell. The zombie's eyes rolled back in surprise. Within seconds, it loosened its grip on the elf as its body shook with a thin, papery rustling sound. The undead screamed once, and it fell to the floor in a cloud of black dust, decomposed instantly from the inside.

Teldin was an angry, elemental force against his unnatural enemies. He realized he had finally taken enough from this foe that he had never seen, and he attacked the Fool's undead with a short sword in each hand, whirling through their ranks, slicing indiscriminately with all his might. Black blood spattered his armor, his legs, but his cloak remained unstained. A head dangled from dead flesh on his right; on his left, a zombie dropped with a clean, powerful cut through its collarbone and heart. Teldin's hair was sticky with sweat and blood, and his eyes blazed with rage, framed by his taut, blood-spattered face.

He felt the power of the cloak blazing through him, pulsating through his veins with unheard of energy. His blades were silver arcs whistling through the air. His foes fell back, defenseless, maimed by the speed and strength of his swords. The cloak, useless against the nature of the undead, still filled Teldin with power, enhancing and amplifying his own strength and will.

The Cloakmaster's final foe plopped to the floor, sliced in two at the waist. Teldin stopped, panting, and felt the powers of the cloak flow out of him. The remains of the undead were all around him, and he stood in a putrid sea of their corrupt, oily blood.

His friends stared at him in shock. The warriors then cleaned their blades, and Teldin took a deep breath, relaxing. CassaRoc cast a wary glance at him. "We thought you went berserk," he finally said.

Teldin shook his head. "No, the cloak was… giving me energy."

He raised his sword and pointed into the black mist that surrounded them. "That way," he said. "Coh went through there."

"It's probably just another trap," Djan warned.

"Of course it's a trap," Teldin said. "What do you expect? He's trying to lead us to the Fool."

Stardawn said, "You plan to walk right into it?"

Teldin grinned and wiped his sword on the body of a zombie. He stood at the threshold of darkness, then stepped through. Reluctantly, the others followed.

In the dim light, framed by his blood-stained features, Teldin's smile was that of a hungry shark. "We're going to get him right where he wants us."

"You are right where I want you," came a mocking voice from beyond. The darkness swirled away and dissipated, as though it had been absorbed back into its source, and the full size of the new chamber was revealed.

They were in the lair of the Fool.

Tunnels branched off from each side, and the roof of the cavern was lost in the shadows. The chamber was a natural formation, almost organic, diseased with tumors of black fungi and the stench of the dead.

The undead Coh greeted them. His eyes were blazing pinpricks of light. He smiled, beckoning with his black claws, and Teldin lunged and drove his sword straight into Coh's mocking face. The undead neogi collapsed to the floor, spurting gouts of foul blood.

Laughter erupted from the far wall of the dimly lit chamber. Behind gauzy draperies of spiderwebs, the Fool waited for them, perched upon his throne of bones. Cwelanas kneeled before him, his skeletal hand tight on a heavy chain shackled to her slim neck.

" Welcome, Cloakmaster," the Fool said. His voice sent shivers down Teldin's back. It was a death rattle, a breath from the grave.

The Fool stood, jerking Cwelanas's chain tight. The iron shackle dug deep into her throat as she struggled to retain her balance. The Fool slid his black long sword from its ancient scabbard and rested its sharp point against the back of Cwelanas's neck. He slung the heavy chain across her shoulders, and she cried out as the iron links pounded her vulnerable skin. With the other hand the Fool idly toyed with his scarlet amulet.

Teldin's friends arranged themselves around him protectively and faced the dais. Teldin nodded at Cwelanas, questioning with his eyes. "I'm all right," she said.

"Silencel" the Fool yelled with a hiss. The point of his blade drew a drop of blood from her flesh. The sword, tensing for more, for the blood and the life force of the elf, hummed in the Fool's hand.

"The deathblade hungers," the Fool said to Teldin. He laughed. "It has far less patience than I. It yearns to drink deeply of your lovely friend's soul. Shall I let it, Teldin Cloakmaster? Shall I drive my blade deep into her heart, so that my thirsty steel may drink?"

Teldin took a step forward. "If you harm her-" he started, but the Fool interrupted him.

" What will you do, Cloakmaster?" the Fool asked. "What do you think you really can do? You know nothing of my powers. You are but a whelp, a dispensable pawn who chanced on an instrument of power. Your meager determination brought you here, human, simply to see everyone you've ever loved die.

"Is that what you want, Cloakma-"

The Fool stopped suddenly as a glimmer of golden light appeared at Teldin's shoulder. It flickered like a flame, growing into a ball of light that coalesced into the astral form of Gaye Goldring. Her robes flowed about her, glowing with her own psionic energies. She spied the Fool upon his dais and quickly positioned her hands into a defensive posture.

"Ah, my little kender friend," the Fool mocked, "back for your final punishment? I am no shade or banshee to dispel with light, kender. You are nothing more than an insect to me. I will see you die today."

The Fool turned to Teldin.

"Understand this, human. The elf s blood will be spilled, O great Cloakmaster, unless you are prepared to bargain…"

"Bargain." It was Teldin's turn to laugh. "You don't want to bargain, Fool," he said. "You want only to kill."

The Spelljammer, Teldin, Gaye said. His goal is to destroy the Spelljammer and everyone aboard, for revenge of when he was captain.

"Captain?" said Chaladar.

The Fool glowered at them in contempt.

"I know you better than you realize," Teldin said. You're everything I ever fought against. You're everything I've ever hated: arrogance, hatred, war, murder, corruption, death.

"Look around. Do you know what this chamber was?"

The Fool seemed to shrink in upon himself. The warriors turned to observe their surroundings.

"This is the heart, Fool. This is the heart of the Spelljammer, and it is your evil that has corrupted it."

Teldin's friends stood there awestruck, deep within the body of the Spelljammer itself, the great ship's very heart.

"It is a living thing, more powerful and important than you will ever be!" Teldin shouted. "It is far more than a vessel or a city. It is a myth come to life."

The Fool bowed slightly. "If that is all you know, then, Cloakmaster, you know nothing."

"Nothing," Teldin said. "That's all you are, Fool, nothing. You've got all these empty powers, and all you want is to see your obsession come true. 'Death to the Spelljammer.' All because you lacked the discipline to be a worthy captain… or a worthy man."

The Fool flinched in anger. He was not used to humans talking back to him. "The Spelljammer deserves to die after what it did to me!" he shouted. "I was the captain, the best captain. I dared to use the Spelljammer to rule the spheres, and it committed mutiny to destroy me, to imprison me in the Dark Tower with the others. I had other plans."

The Fool's grip tightened on his ruby amulet. "I carefully made.. arrangements for my escape. Plans for my revenge. And your damned cloak is destined to be the instrument of the Spelljammer's death!"

"Can you think of nothing else?" Teldin challenged. "Did you sell your mind as well as your soul? You have the ship's population tricked into thinking you're an all powerful wizard, or a foul demigod, who secretly rules the Spelljammer." Teldin raised his arms and gestured. "Look around you. You are surrounded by nothingness, darkness, emptiness. You are a ruler of nothing but the dead. You're nothing but a zombie yourself."

"The dead are excellent servants," the Fool said, "as you and your little whore will be soon, if you do not give me the Cloak of the First Pilot."

Teldin pointed his sword at the Fool. "The cloak is mine." He braced his legs defiantly. "The cloak cannot be removed unless I'm dead. If you want the cloak, you're going to have to take care of me first."

The Fool grimaced in what amounted to a smile. "I do so love a challenge," he said.

The blazing pinpricks in his eyes flickered momentarily, then around the warriors the moaning began. They gathered together and formed a tight circle.

The chamber filled with the shambling undead. Elves, humans, dwarves, even a long-undead k'r'r'r, surrounded them, fifty or so swarming in from warrens hidden deep in the shadows of the Fool's lair. Above their constant moaning, the Fool laughed.

"The decision is yours, Cloakmaster," he said. "Give up the cloak, or all of you will die, and your precious Cwelanas will come to love my embrace… in undeath."

"We've taken our chances before, Fool," Teldin said. "We'll take them now."

The Fool's eyes flickered once, and the undead attacked. The blades of the humans whistled through the air, slicing through dead bone with a fury for life that only the desperate can muster. The warriors' battle cries echoed through the chamber, drowning out the low moans of undead agony.

But the undead had them surrounded in numbers far superior to their own, and it was only a matter of time before they were overpowered. Chaladar was the first to be wounded, bitten in the leg by the yellow teeth of an undead neogi. CassaRoc, despite the mighty swings of his battle-axe, was grabbed from behind by an undead umber hulk. Teldin and the others were busy defending themselves. His sword sliced through three undead before he was overtaken by their sheer numbers. His cloak was impotent, useless; it hung to the floor without power.

The light in the room suddenly brightened, and the Cloakmaster realized the glow was emanating from Gaye. She floated inches above the floor, her eyes closed as if in sleep, her hands crossed over her chest. Her voice echoed like a sibilant whisper in his mind. Protect the others. "Protect? How?"

The light that was her life force shone brighter. The undead flinched at her radiance, then continued on as the Fool screamed at them, "Kill them! Kill them all!

Teldin felt Gaye's power flicker over his bare arms. Instinctively, he shouted "Come here!" to the others. "Quickly! We haven't much time!"

The warriors doubled their energies and pummeled away at the undead. Then they were lined around him, weapons ready, enveloped in Gaye's warm glow.

Her eyes snapped open. Her energy suddenly hummed in their ears like a powerful inhalation of breath. Teldin gasped, and he knew.

His body was flooded with the icefire of the cloak's power, and the cloak billowed out, stretching impossibly to encircle the warriors and pull them into a tight group. They all felt the cloak's energies then, tingling along their skin, raising the hairs on their arms and necks with a ripple of cold.

The cloak tightened around them, concealing them from Gaye's powers.

And the light from Gaye was expelled from her astral body in an explosion of heat and energy and psionic power, an ultrapowerful blast of mental energy that burned through the undead and knocked them to the floor, reeling in pain as their bodies resonated with purifying energy.

The undead collapsed upon themselves, all semblance of their minds burned away with the blast of Gaye's life force. She flickered weakly and floated to the floor, where her aura faded to a dim glow.

Teldin willed the cloak to unfurl, and he and his warriors rushed to her. She was weak, but she smiled bravely.

The chamber was littered with the bodies of the dead, and Teldin jumped through them toward the Fool's dais.

"You may stop the undead" the Fool yelled, "but you will never stop me!"

The Cloakmaster reached the dais in one leap. He coiled and swung at the Fool with his sword, but the blade cleaved harmlessly through the image of the Fool as though it were smoke.

Teldin stepped back. "Cwelanas?" he said.

Her image wavered, then swirled away, a spell of illusion blown on the dark winds of the Fool's chamber. The image of the Fool seemed to smile in glee as it blew apart on a cold breeze. Over it all Teldin heard the Fool's laughter, from wherever his place of concealment was.

"One chance more, you have, Cloakmaster," the Fool's voice echoed throughout the chamber. "The cloak for the woman. This will be her only hope."

His voice faded, echoing with cackles of laughter, and Teldin spun on the dais to face his friends.

"All this for nothing! We walked straight into it."

"It had to be done," CassaRoc said. "We had the chance to find her. We would do it again."

Teldin nodded grimly.

Without warning, the Spelljammer shuddered violently from the pounding of ballistae up on deck. The Cloakmaster steadied himself, then went over to the others as the shaking ceased.

Gaye knelt over Chaladar, who grimaced in pain at the burning sensation of the undead neogi's bite. I can heal this easily, Gaye assured.

"What about yourself?" said Teldin.

She forced a smile. "I am weak but well, not too weak to help your friends."

Gaye placed her hands above Chaladar's wound and relaxed, willing herself deep into a healing trance. Her aura merged with that of the paladin, and she could feel his unconsciousness as though it were a sweet, cold narcotic, washing through her, tempting her to release her hold on wakefulness and fall into blissful darkness. Then the pain in Chaladar's leg flared an angry scarlet in Gaye's own leg, and she willed the pain away.

Heat flowed through Gaye's hands, enveloping the paladin's injury and permeating his skin to settle deep into the bone. Her hands bumed with her psionic healing powers, and her mind flooded with cold, like a night breeze. She wavered as dark unconsciousness washed over her, brought on by both the intense strain of healing and the stress of using her psionic abilities so much in so short a time.

Within minutes, Chaladar's wound was healed and the paladin stood, stretching his leg as though nothing had happened. Gaye seemed to sag with weariness, and her glow dimmed.

We must leave this place, Estriss remarked. Cwelanas is still missing, and the Cloakmaster must seek the adytum. If he does not reach it soon, the Spelljammer may be lost.

"We must leave," Teldin agreed. "This farce of the Fool's has wasted enough time."

Gaye smiled thinly at him. I must leave to renew my energy. You will need me in the time to come. But I have the strength to do one thing more to help you on your quest.

"What?" Teldin asked.

Gaye raised her astral arms and concentrated. Slowly, the group began to shimmer with her own golden energy, and they found themselves shimmering into existence on deck, materializing in the center of a group of warring elves and mind flayers.

The unhumans' swords were raised in combat. Their bloody skirmish stopped suddenly as the warriors appeared in their midst, cries of surprise echoing around them.

Then, screaming their angry battle cries, the unhumans attacked.

And in the sudden melee, no one considered that, in their last moments in the Fool's lair, the body of the undead Master Coh was nowhere to be seen.