glanced at Cwelanas, who smiled thinly at him. 'And I believe they want this so they can somehow control the Spelljammer and make it a force of evil across the spheres.'
This gained Chaladar's full attention. The paladin stood up straight and focused his gaze on Teldin. The zeal for punishing evil was strong in Chaladar, and he would do anything to thwart the plans of those who dared to embrace chaos.
'I won't allow this,' Teldin proclaimed.
Chaladar agreed loudly, shouting, 'Go on, Cloakmaster.'
Teldin looked out into the warriors' eyes and realized they were listening to him. Their trust was incomplete, he knew; he could see that in some of their expressions. He knew he had to prove himself to them, as he had already proved himself to CassaRoc, and now Chaladar. 'If I am here for a reason, somehow bound together with this cloak and with the Spelljammer, then it is a purpose for good, not evil. It is a purpose for life, and for honor- not conquest and death.'
The warriors began murmuring their agreement. The dark band at his throat began to grow warm, but he did not notice.
'I will need your help. If my enemies- our enemies- want this cloak, then that means they want me. That means that we'll have a fight on our hands, another fight to the death, probably, but a fight for good, a battle for the Spelljammer's destiny. There is a war raging right now, perhaps a second Unhuman War. When this is over on the Spelljammer, maybe we will all be able to live in peace and explore the universe, without fear of dark magic and Unhuman enemies. But I'll need your help.'
The crowd was silent, staring at Teldin. Chaladar came up and said quietly, 'Teldin, your cloak.'
Teldin looked down. On its own, the cloak had unfurled and grown, softly flaring out behind him in the approximate shape of the Spelljammer. Its colors flared brightly, seemingly infused with the energies of the flow, and, as he watched, the inner lining grew dark and the light of stars appeared within, as though the cloak were a vista upon some distant wildspace.
Chaladar said, 'I told Teldin that I believed he could unite the collective into a force for good. I now believe that was his destiny all along. Teldin Moore… Cloakmaster… I will be honored to stand with you- and all the warriors of the Chalice tower will stand with you as well.'
CassaRoc's warriors shouted agreement with the grand knight. From the bar, CassaRoc shouted, 'And we're with you as well, Teldin. Aren't we, lads?'
At that, all the warriors in the room cheered. Teldin looked upon them and smiled, at CassaRoc, at Chaladar, at Emil and Cwelanas. But there was a frown on her face, and before he could question it, hands were reaching for him, clapping his back, shaking his hand. From around the room he heard cries of 'To Teldin Cloakmaster!' Toasts were made, and the warriors introduced themselves for so long that, by the end, he could remember only a handful of their names. His doubts slowly drowned in an overwhelming sea of friendship.
Through it all, no one noticed a small, dark shape crawling on the floor, poking its black, furred snout from around the bar. No one noticed its faint sweet smell, the stench of something long dead.
And no one noticed its white, burning eyes.
There was no warmth, no friendship, in the oppressive silence that lay deep within the secret warrens that veined the mighty Spelljammer. The dark world hidden beneath the citadel, the tunnels that stretched mazelike from tip to tip throughout the Spelljammer's body, were cold and reeked with the stench of ancient evil. Only the dead and the undead walked in the warrens. Silence was spoken here, broken only by the shudder of a death rattle, the screams of souls, the whisper of black winds from the worlds beyond the grave.
The tunnels wove unevenly through the Spelljammer, ending at only a few points with concealed entrances at the lowest levels of the citadel. Where the living made their homes above, in chambers of light and air, surrounded by mementoes of their accomplishments and the items they needed to live happily among their brothers, the undead of the warrens lay quietly in nests of dry straw, moldy furs, and torn tapestries. Their existence was one of unquiet hatred, existing against their wills between the planes of light and dark, in lairs where the endless warrens intersected or widened enough to afford room for nests.
The dead enjoy their own company.
In one dark, secret lair, hidden deep within the ship so that even the Spelljammer's magic could not detect his evil, exiled to a chamber carpeted with spongy layers of black mold, hung with fineries of moss and green fungi, and furnished with the bones of the long dead, the Fool watched.
His eye sockets were black pits of darkness burning deep inside with bright pinpoints of silver light. He watched through the eyes of his undead vermin as the warriors far above, in the Tower of Thought, surrounded the Cloakmaster and accepted him as one of them.
The Fool rose from his throne, a bleached chair formed from the spines of orcs and the skulls of elves, and he paced the chamber. Where he walked, cold black smoke rose from his footprints.
His gray skin was shrunken, pulled tightly, like parchment, across his undead bones. His eyes glared fiercely, and his skull-like face was contorted in an eternal rictus of hatred. His long, skeletal fingers absently rubbed the length of a crimson amulet at his neck, and the long, rectangular crystal swirled with an unnatural, inner fire.
Long ago his name had been Romar. Now he was simply the Fool. A library of legends had grown around him over the decades. Some believed he was merely a zombie. Some believed he was a skeletal worm that fed on the heart of the Spelljammer. Others believed he was the Spelljammer's secret captain. Few had ever seen him; most believed he was a myth, a shadow creature used to scare children.
But the few who had had dealings with the Fool were never the same again. Master Coh believed the Fool was an ally- Hah! The neogi had much to learn, and would learn it soon. The Fool brooked friendship with no one and was ally only to the dark gods. Coh was not a master, but a puppet.
The Fool laughed. He was not called 'the Fool' because he was stupid, like his 'allies,' but because he had fooled everyone- even the Spelljammer itself- about his secret existence within the ship's warrens.
But things, the Fool foretold, will soon change.
Through the eyes of his undead rat, he could see the contemptible respect on the human warriors' faces, the sickening strength with which the Cloakmaster carried himself-oh, the arrogance of this human pest! — and the Fool whispered to himself of the things he would do to Teldin Moore, Teldin Cloakmaster, of how delicious it would be to command this mortal's undead body like a marionette, once the cloak and the Spelljammer were his.
He knew the cloak. He had followed the signs and had bonded long enough with the Spelljammer for knowledge of the cloak's history to become his. He knew what was the legend and what was the truth; he knew the course of the Spelljammer's destiny, and what the coming of the Cloakmaster truly meant.
For the Cloak of the First Pilot had been returned, and the Compass was the key that would guide the Cloakmaster and the Spelljammer to their unseen fate.
Unless he could take the cloak, and the Spelljammer, for himself.. one last time.
The Fool hissed, the laughter of the dead.
'Spelllljammerrrrrrr…'he said, licking his taut lips with a desiccated tongue.
The Fool's whispering was the sound of the cold wind whistling through dead trees; the sound of worms burrowing through bones nestled deep within the ground. His ways of thinking were far different from those of the living. His ways were the madness of death, the joy of destruction, the sweet perfection of utter despair.
As he whispered dementedly to himself, he ran his hands over the mildewed doll's head atop his long conjuring wand, and he imagined his darkest fantasies, his secret desires, his long-hated memories: of the Spelljammer, of his failure as captain of the great ship many years ago-Failure! Because the Spelljammer was not worthy of me! — of his death-long quest for revenge.
His whispers were broken and rambling, the rasping of the dying. They echoed off the cold, slimy walls, a perverted reflection of Teldin Moore's own promises of life, of peace.
'Yesss,' the Fool uttered to the darkness. He could see it all now, his last stand before the Dark Times began. 'Yesssss. A mighty fight. Many battles… and blood… the blood…'
The Fool shuddered in ecstasy, his twisted mind filled with visions of death and revenge against the Spelljammer.
'Many will die at my hands. War and blood, to the death…
'A fight… for evil. For souls… for death… for the Spelljammer's final destiny
'Its… death!
The master lich laughed to himself for a long time. Above, in the market of the Spelljammer, shopkeepers
