soulless clawing of fingernails across slate.
A beholder floated out of the ruins, followed by two of its scaly kinsmen. They spied the Cloakmaster and his group. One beholder hurried back to the doorway, and a beam of light lanced out from one of its wavering eyestalks with a hiss of burning air. It shouted, 'The Cloakmaster has come! Attack him! Attack!'
The doorway of the beholder ruins darkened. Ragged shadows floated from the entrance, bobbing unsteadily above the deck, as though light, and the outdoors, were unnatural to them. The beholders spread out and away from the dark shapes emerging from the ruins. Their enslaved minotaurs raced from the ruins, their horrified gazes focused on the things escaping from the ruins. Several minotaurs broke ranks and ran toward the relative safety of the war elsewhere on the Spelljammer, They knew that unholy death had been unleashed, and that escape was their only prayer.
'Why are they running?' CassaRoc asked. He turned then and saw a few of the dark shapes floating toward him.
Djan helped support Na'Shee, who touched her forehead tenderly. They stared toward the ruins.
'By the Dark Queen,' Teldin said. He had his sword ready in his hand. 'What in the Abyss are they?'
They floated out, bobbing drunkenly, as though drugged, barely aware of their surroundings. Their great eyes blinked at the light from the chaotic flow. Teldin heard Na'Shee gasp in horror. 'They're.. they're so…'
CassaRoc said, 'Ugly.'
'Obscene,' offered Chaladar.
The things clearly had been beholders, but they were true beholders no longer. Their great, round bodies were blackened, malformed, as though burned from the inside out, and wrapped with stained and moldy bandages. There were thirteen of them, and each of their ten eyestalks hung shriveled, withered, and blind upon their crowns. Their long, gnarly mouths were pulled back in endless pain, exposing rotting, ragged teeth, and their great red eyes blinked slowly, taking in their surroundings as though they were but a dim memory.
Djan said, 'They look undead.'
'Mummies,' Stardawn guessed.
One of the floating monsters came nearer to the humans. It focused on a beholder floating beyond them, closer to the elf tower. Its mouth drew back in a cry of fury, and a scarlet bolt of power burst from the thing's central eye. The air sizzled with its heat. The ray found its target, and the beholder screamed as its scales blistered away. The eye tyrant imploded in a burst of crimson energy.
The kasharin, Estriss said. I had thought they were only rumor, legend. They're the survivors of the Blinding Rot.
'We've got to get clear,' CassaRoc said. 'What can we do against death magic like that?'
The death rays of the kasharin lanced out at foes and beholders alike. The kasharin's hatred for the living- especially the other beholders, it seemed to Teldin-was boundless, and all were considered potential targets. The air was filled with the sound of death rays blazing from the beholder mummies and the wails of the dying.
Minotaurs, screaming in agony, burst into red flame. A hill giant ran up to a kasharin, its immense battle-axe raised for the kill. The kasharin twisted toward it and blasted out with its magic. The beam burned through the giant's shield, and the creature was engulfed in scarlet flame as its skin smoldered and blackened. Rays of blazing energy shot forth from its eyes and mouth as it burned away from the inside. The axe clattered to the deck.
The kasharin turned toward Teldin and grimaced.
Red energy flickered behind its great eye as its orb swelled with power.
Teldin raised his shield and sword. He thought briefly of hurling himself toward the thing, driving his sword into its eye as they both died, the mummy in its own blood, he, a charred corpse.
The kasharin shook as its energies built up inside it. The great eye flared red. The death ray shot toward him, a blazing beam that seared the air.
Teldin threw up his shield protectively, knowing it was useless. Then he was hammered from the side by a heavy weight, and the death beam licked across his shoulder and found a minotaur standing beyond the humans.
Teldin fell to the deck, his left arm trapped beneath him. The weight blocked his view as the minotaur imploded. Teldin twisted his head and looked up. All he saw was plaid.
'I couldn't let it kill you, sir,' Emil said.
The Cloakmaster looked behind the small warrior. Others from the Tower of Thought were rushing their way, firing crossbow bolts and tossing spears at the unhumans and the kasharin.
Teldin smiled and reached for his sword as Emil stood up. 'Just in time,' Teldin said. Then he looked up as a round shadow fell across him, from behind his savior's shoulder. 'Paladine's blood!' Teldin shouted. 'Watch out, Emil!'
The little fighter turned. A kasharin had floated within a few feet of him, and its great eye flared an angry red as it stared solely at Emil.
The fighter took a step back and fumbled under his cloak for his slingshot, but the air hummed with the power of the kasharin's death ray. Emil was blown back, his skin blistered and smoking with the power of the kasharin's fury.
Teldin leaped up. Emil twisted in agony as the kasharin's death magic burned within him. 'Spelljammer-' Emil had time to say. 'Save.. the Spelljammer-'
Then Emil died in a gout of red-hot energy that was as bright to Teldin as the light of a thousand suns.
He had had enough. Teldin screamed into the flow, at the fighting, the senselessness of it all. He screamed at the treachery of the races, at the friends who had betrayed him in his quest across the spheres, at the friends and lovers who had died, at their murderers and their selfish desires.
At the death.
He reached down and gripped a huge battle-axe that a minotaur had dropped while fleeing the ruins. He spun and screamed aloud, raising the axe high above his head, and he drove it deep into the kasharin's great eye. Energy flickered around the steel as Teldin pulled it out, then swung it hard into the kasharin's crusted body. Scales split as the axe cleaved through the mummy's dead flesh. Thin black blood sprayed Teldin's arms and burned like acid. Teldin screamed as he jerked the axe out of the kasharin and plunged it deep into its crimson eye. He screamed as the kasharin plopped lifeless to the deck.
He screamed as he chopped into its body until all that was left were pieces of blackened scales and diseased flesh. He screamed as he felt hands on him, pulling him toward the elf tower and away from the beholders' murder machines.
Teldin, he heard Estriss say dimly, as though at a distance,
Teldin, we must hurry. Teldin jerked his shoulder away. The warriors watched him as Estriss approached slowly, his hands held peaceably before him. Teldin, you must listen… The Cloakmaster's glazed eyes slowly focused on the mind flayer. We have to leave here, Estriss said. The Spelljammer needs you.
The warriors broke into a run, Teldin at the rear, lost in thought. He looked up briefly as he felt pebbles fall across his shoulder, then a corner of the beholder ruins collapsed under a heavy rain of boulders and iron shot from a ship in the flow. The war was on in full force, and in the heat of senseless violence, the Spelljammer had become less an object of conquest than an enemy to be destroyed.
Stardawn led them to the heavily guarded entrance of the Elven High Command. The guards stopped them and formed a protective shield around them while the battles with the kasharin widened and the beholder-mummies spread between the towers.
Then Stardawn led them through the entrance chamber and the audience gallery to the darkened, spiral staircase at the lower level. They started up, twisting toward the battlements, and wound their way slowly to the top, climbing single file up the narrow staircase. At the uppermost landing, Stardawn took a heavy key from his belt and opened the door to the battlements. Here the air of the Spelljammer's protective bubble seemed thinner, and their cloaks and hair waved in a slight breeze. They hurried across the stone battlement and stopped at the sealed entrance of the Armory.
The sky was filled with vessels battling among themselves or twisting down toward the Spelljammer with their weapons armed. Teldin shook his head. All this… for what?
My destiny.
The warriors took positions around Teldin, who turned to face the double doors into the Armory. The doors were sealed with a disk of metal that gleamed like silver, bronze, and gold all at once. A three-pointed star was
