The Ultimate Helm

Chapter Thirty-Three

The warriors made it to the bottom floor of the Armory without encountering the senseless shivaks. "Why aren't they stopping us?" CassaRoc asked as they hurried through an immense warehouse of weapons and supplies.

"I don't know," Cwelanas said. "Either Teldin has ordered them to let us pass, or it's because I now bear an ultimate helm."

The doors swung inward upon their approach, and they blinked at the bright light of the phlogiston. CassaRoc hefted Stardawn's body and tossed it unceremoniously under the battlements behind the Old Elvish Academy. "There." He wiped his hands on his chest. "On this side, we're closer to the garden doors to port," CassaRoc said. "We ought to cut between the Shou tower and the dwarven citadel."

Cwelanas nodded. The Spelljammer shifted then, and they watched as the ship sped deliberately toward a mass of enemy fleets.

"What's going to happen?" Djan asked.

Cwelanas stared at him and shook her head sadly. Estriss answered him, knowingly. Teldin is giving us a chance to live… and I believe he will try to make this as even a battle as he can.

The enemy ships appeared considerably closer, more formidable. "Bah," CassaRoc said. "He will destroy himself and the Spelljammer, just like I said before."

"No," Cwelanas said, "it's more than that. Teldin…" She stared off, as though her helm were letting her see visions of a future to come. "Believe me, he will be fine."

They looked at her strangely, then CassaRoc said, "I suppose we have to trust you, too."

She smiled. "Yes, I guess you do."

They broke into a run, Na'Shee taking the rear, and started past the Shou tower toward the entrance to the gardens, where the Cloakmaster had told them the smalljammer waited. The Spelljammer's port wing was relatively clear of fighting; most of the battles were being fought in towers, by the communities protecting the ship from the oncoming enemies.

The gardens were located in a cavernous chamber beneath the city. In reality, the chamber was an immense hangar, with huge, louvered doors located on each side, behind the Spelljammer's massive gills. The doors were barely open, and closing even more, when the party arrived. The warriors lowered themselves to the deck and crawled underneath the port door. "The Dark Times have come," Cwelanas told them. "It was not just a legend. The Bonding brings with it a time of birth, the Dark Times, when the gardens must be closed to nurture the smalljammers…"

She trailed off, unable to take in the immensity of the gardens. The landscape stretched off into fields of grain, into seeming forests of jamberry trees and other plants cultivated from across the spheres. The ceiling of the gardens stood about 150 feet above her head and was lined by countless light panels that provided cycles of both day and night to the crops and plants that made up the ship's primary food supply.

"Where?" Cwelanas wondered.

Chaladar pointed beyond a vegetable garden to the circular forest of jamberry trees. "Teldin is smart. I would bet that he hid the smalljammer there, in order to keep it hidden from view."

Cwelanas plunged into the wood. The ground was littered with leaves and fallen jamberries, and she rushed between the trees to discover a dirt path that rounded through the wood.

On the far side of the path, at the edge of a grove encircled by the path, she stopped. The others gathered around her.

The smalljammer gleamed in the light, untouched and fresh, like a newborn child. Like the Spelljammer, the smalljammer was manta-shaped and made of a chitinous substance that was shaded from light blue to light purple. On its back was an organically constructed cabin comprising two decks and a jewellike observation deck on top. Its eyes were windows to the control cabin, and its tail, identical to that of its parent, hung over its body. Its wingspan stretched more than 140 feet, and the ship sat silently, serenely, waiting for the gentle touch of its first pilot.

Cwelanas carefully swung up onto a wing and entered the cabin through the open door on the wing deck. Most of the inside deck was open space, more than enough for a fair amount of cargo or passengers. The innermost cabins were unfurnished rooms, ready to be made habitable. The bulbous forward cabin contained only a seat for the ship's captain. Hatchways from there led to the upper deck and the roof. The upper deck contained several more personal cabins, the galley, and a storage room.

Cwelanas ran her hand down the side of the chair, then she sat slowly, stiffly in the throne. For a moment, the palms of her hands grew hot as energy seemingly transferred from the ship into her, then back again. She shivered, as though a breath had been blown on the back of her neck. She felt strong, refreshed, and even the throne seemed softer.

Estriss hissed calmly, an expression of contentment. You are now the ship's captain, the mind flayer said.

Cwelanas sat blinking, astonished. The throne had changed shape, conforming to her size and posture. No chair had ever felt so comfortable. "The captain… me. I'm the new-"

The hangar door outside the ship rang with a deafening impact, and the door thudded inward, bowing under some great mass that had collided against it from the outside. The Spelljammer rocked unsteadily, sending the warriors reeling to the side of the smalljammer.

Cwelanas sprang from the captain's chair and climbed up the hatchway to stand at the pinnacle of the observation cabin. "Damn," she said. "Not this."

The door had been bent and fractured inward, and she could make out the basic outline of a small ship's bow imprinted in the door. From outside she could hear the sounds of screams and fighting. "We're not going to get out that way," she said out loud.

The group clambered out the hatchway and jumped off the smalljammers wing.

The hangar doors were made of organic material as strong as steel, but were pliable, like aluminum. The door was veined with cracks in some areas, but was primarily bent inward, and Cwelanas realized that there was no way this door was ever going to recede into the ceiling again.

"Damn it!" she said, pounding her fist against her thigh. "Damn them! Damn them all!"

Without warning, a heavy weight crashed into her from behind, sending her sprawling to the ground. She tasted dirt on her tongue and gritted her teeth. Above her, someone laughed coarsely.

She rolled over and winced in the artificial daylight from the ceiling, then a shadow eclipsed the light, and she stared into a sleek black face that was split wide with an evil yellow grin.

She scrabbled backward involuntarily until her back was pressed hard against the crumpled door. She reached for the sword at her side. Her companions stood silently only ten feet away from her, staring blankly, and she saw that they had been rendered immobile with some sort of spell.

Two eyes looked down at her, two eyes filled with black, undead fire.

"Master Coh," she whispered.

Another neogi crept up on her other side.

"You," she hissed. "You."

B'Laath'a, the new master of the undead Coh, smiled.