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.
Chapter Twenty-Six
'… The beholders claim that a stranger will come to bring darkness upon us all. The dwarves claim that a weapon will be forged that will both destroy and create. The elves claim that the past will become the present. ''Ancient legends, all, that have circulated for a thousand years. My own scrying has revealed but one thing: all are one and the same…' Marias, fortune-teller of the market; reign of Bentley the Fearless.
er and hatred, of an unquenchable bloodlust that spanned the races.
The battle for the cloak spread like an unstoppable fire. The beholders battled the mind flayers; the Shou fought the humanoids; the mind flayers engaged the elves. The decks ran red with the blood of humans and unhumans alike, mingling together for the first time… in death, in eternal peace.
The Spelljammer was ablaze with the fires of war.
Above, in the Rainbow Ocean, uncounted vessels converged on the Broken Sphere. Even at this distance, Teldin could tell that several were fighting with other ships, casting grappling hooks and firing light ballistae at their enemies. Larger ships loomed behind them, aiming for the vicinity of the Spelljammer. They followed me here, Teldin knew. They followed the cloak and its powers, all to gain control of the spheres. All to wage war and enslave others and rape the universe of all its innate good.
He swore to himself. Never. Not If I have something to do about it.
He knew that his time to gain the adytum was running short.
He and his companions found themselves surrounded by unhumans near the tower of the Tenth Pit, Teldin realized. He faced the Spelljammer's thick tail, and to his right, towering above a corner of the beholder ruins, stood the proud tower of the elves.
'We have to make it back to the elven command!' Teldin shouted, pointing his sword. Then a shrill Unhuman cry broke out around him, and Teldin spun around to meet his attackers, his shield and sword raised high in defense. Arranged beside him, the other warriors all prepared to defend against the battling Unhuman hordes, to help the Cloakmaster achieve his destiny.
Teldin lurched forward, his chest tight with the hot, constricting pain that was the call of the Spelljammer. Outside of the warrens, the call was more intense, more urgent, and the heat that crackled through him was fiery, insistent. Cwelanas was all but forgotten in the heat of the call, and he spun around and screamed in mindless agony as the Spelljammer summoned him.
'I will come!' he shouted. 'I will come!'
A group of illithids was the first to attack, recognizing the Cloakmaster easily and momentarily forgetting their hatred of the elves. CassaRoc leaped in front of Teldin and engaged two of them as Teldin struggled to keep the call under control. CassaRoc knocked one mind flayer's outstretched claws away with a powerful swing of his sword, then pierced the other illithid straight through. He pulled his sword free and laughed loudly. 'Come on, mind flayers!' he cried. 'The only brains you'll feed on today will be those of your own dead and dying!'
The elves saw their chance as they realized the illithids had turned their attention toward the humans. As a group, they viciously attacked the mind flayers from behind and cut through their forces without mercy. Stardawn rushed to the elves' aid, keeping close enough to Teldin to protect him from both the mind flayers and his elven brethren, who knew nothing of his pretended alliance with the Cloakmaster. He wanted Teldin to die at his own hands and give him the secret of the cloak.
Na'Shee and Djan together took on three mind flayers, j fighting furiously with shield and steel. The illithids fought back even harder with their mental powers, finally backing the pair up against one cracked pillar outside the beholder ruins.
Djan was lucky. One haphazard thrust of his sword pierced an illithid's eye. It stumbled as its hand went up to protect its face. Djan saw his opportunity and thrust his blade straight through the mind flayer's heart. With a cry of horror and pain, the illithid dropped to its knees. Djan jerked out his sword. Blood spurted from the mind flayer's mortal wound, spraying Djan's boots. Then the mind flayer keeled over with a thump, its facial tentacles twitching once in a spreading pool of its own blood.
Na'Shee kept the others at bay with a flashy display of swordsmanship that easily broke through the mind flayers meager physical defenses. Blood oozed from half a dozen shallow wounds across their limbs as the woman effortlessly deflected their sword thrusts and turned away their virgin steel. She flicked out her blade, and an illithid dropped to her feet, its hand neatly severed at the wrist. The mind flayer dropped back, and its partner closed in. She dispatched it with relative ease, hammering away its blade with her shield, then running her sword through its chest. As the illithid fell, she reached for the long dagger tucked in its belt and hurled it expertly at the wounded illithid, now limping away with its bleeding stump. The dagger caught the mind flayer squarely between its shoulders, and the Unhuman fell forward, flat onto its tentacled face.
Teldin was attacked by three mind flayers, shouting, Beware his powers! and The cloak will be ours! His blade lashed out faster than the mind flayers could comprehend, drawing a long line of scarlet down one illithid's arm and driving deep into another's unprotected neck to sever an artery in a great fountain of blood.
Teldin had never fought so fast or so furiously. His strength, his being, was noticeably different. The tingle of cold energy from the cloak no longer seemed to be present. Teldin's sense of perception was not distorted in any way either; time did not slow for him as he protected himself with his steel, and his strong frame did not shiver with the energies of the cloak. He knew that he alone could not fight as furiously as this, and he wondered if the cloak's apparent lack of power was the cause.
He felt it on his shoulders; he knew the cloak was there, was always there, flowing around him as though he had been born with it. He felt it with him like one feels the hair on one's head, as though it belonged.
Teldin knew instinctively, as his sword whipped out to meet his assailants' pitiful physical offense, that now the cloak and he were one. It was no longer a tool that he should try to control, nor had it ever really been. In the short time since the attack of the Fool's undead, the cloak's energies had become his own. The cloak had become nothing less than a second skin, a sentient, protective limb that worked with him, not for him, and had been waiting until Teldin's need had driven it to bond with him.
Five illithids charged through the skirmish, armed with nothing but their innate mental powers. The group parted, and the leader of the mind flayers stepped through. Behind the Cloakmaster, Estriss screamed, Beware! Lord Trebek wants you dead!
Trebek stood before the Cloakmaster in regal black robes and hissed angrily at him. His tentacles quivered in hatred. It is my honor to destroy you, Trebek said. The mind flayer stood tall, and Teldin could see his concentration turn inward, focusing his mental power.
Teldin's mind reeled with a shout of Nooooo! as Estriss levitated across the deck and landed between them. Estriss turned to Lord Trebek and held up his hands, warning the illithid away. Do not do this, Trebek. This is more complex than you can imagine.
Trebek glared at him. The leader's opaque eyes narrowed. You area traitor to your own race, phlbasta. You consort with food, with humans. Have you no pride in your race at all?
Trebek's eyes became slits. Estriss suddenly felt a pinpoint of hot pain blossom in his mind, and he staggered back, moaning under the attack.
