Na'Shee was the first to react. She leaped upon Stardawn and hurled him to the floor. Her hand went up, ready to smash into the elf s face, but the elf threw a powerful right jab into her jaw.
She was knocked across him. Stardawn scrambled up and jerked the sword from the Cloakmaster's lifeless chest. He angled the blade toward the dark shape of the Fool. 'The Cloakmaster is dead, now, Fool!' the elf shouted. 'I shall be captain now, as it always should have been!'
He placed his hand on one of the throne's pedestals, then stared down, waiting for the trickle of energy to flow up his arm, bonding him to the Spelljammer.
The Fool laughed.
' You killed the captain, elf' the Fool said. ' You killed my plans for the Spelljammer. The helm is gone with the Bonding, and you have only your own, pitiful delusions to live for.'
The others in the party pulled out their weapons as the Fool approached. He lifted a hand, and an invisible wave of force sent the warriors sprawling into the walls. Djan's head collided with the wall, and the world went dark around him.
The Fool spun on Stardawn. To the elf lord it was as if the Fool suddenly sailed from the floor to stand before him upon the dais. Two skeletal hands clasped tightly around Stardawn's throat.
The Fool's eyes glimmered brightly, blazing into Stardawn's eyes. He felt the strength wash out of him, felt his legs go limp, and the Fool clasped him high in the air with one hand around his neck.
'Mine…' the Fool said, as though to himself. ' You have ruined it all… and you shall pay.'
Stardawn's eyes went wide with terror. The dried, brittle skull that was the Fool's face seemed to open in a smile. Star-dawn shuddered in the Fool's grasp, his limbs twitching in an uncontrollable paroxysm of fear. The Fool covered the elfs face, his mouth and nose, with his hand. Two fingertips of bone touched the elfs eyes gently, like a lover's embrace.
Stardawn screamed. He flailed violently in the Fool's cold grasp, and his life force was sucked from his body like smoke, consumed hungrily like a sweet morsel, and the Fool laughed at his meal.
He flung the elfs body to the floor at the warriors' feet. CassaRoc stood uneasily, half-dazed, and the others brought themselves around as the Fool crept toward them.
'All shall pay,' the Fool said softly. 'All shall pay for stealing my revenge.'
The master lich halted suddenly. A sphere of light formed around the warriors, a protective bubble of force. Inside the shield, a glow appeared, and the astral form of Gaye Goldring materialized, burning with a strength the Fool had never conceived. The lich spoke a chant, and the shield shuddered as his spell flickered at its edges, ineffective against the kender's psionic strength.
'How?' he asked.
Inside the shield, the warriors turned away from the Fool and gasped, staring behind him.
Then the Fool felt himself levitated, held in a grip of power that spun him around to face his assailant. His black, shining eyes dimmed in uncomprehending fear.
The Cloakmaster stood before him, holding the Fool in midair with the forces of his new life with the Spelljammer. He willed the Fool closer, and his vision, filled with dream-scapes and worlds beyond imagining, focused on the dead face of the master lich.
'No more,' the Cloakmaster said.
The Fool struggled against the forces that held him. He gestured with his hands, and the Cloakmaster was slammed back into his throne by a fist formed from the air. The Fool dropped and jumped off the dais, summoning his strength. He pulled his deathblade from its rotted scabbard. ' You have died once already, Cloakmaster. I believe you can die again.'
The air swirled between them, coalescing with flares of magic. An aura formed in the air, took shape, and the Cloakmaster reached out and plucked the spell from the air.
The energies flickered in his hand, outlining a blade of power, pulsating with his own life force. He leaped, and the blades met between the two enemies, death and life, sparks flying from their swords.
Inside the shield, the warriors could feel the thick tension in the adytum, the two primal forces battling for supremacy of the Spelljammer. Estriss looked after the unconscious Djan, and the others stood ready, weapons out, to join in the fray.
The Cloakmaster and the Fool were behemoths of raw power, battling around the chamber in a ballet that would only lead to death. Their blades collided and rang, were knocked to carve deep wounds into the Spelljammer's walls. The Fool drew first blood, slipping under the Cloakmaster's guard to slice deep into his forearm. But blood did not flow from the wound, and the Cloakmaster battled on, heedless, seething with power.
Forgotten, alone in the corner, was Cwelanas.
She pulled her iron chains from the floor and wrapped them around one arm. The Fool was concentrating solely on the fight. He had forgotten all about her, and she could finally move.
Teldin fought with the strength and speed of a storm, but the Fool's powers were considerable, and she knew that there was little she could do to help Teldin defeat the creature, unarmed as she was.
But there was something she could take…
The Fool was a lich of some kind, she knew, though she had never seen or heard of a lich quite like this one. She thought back, trying to remember what she knew of their weaknesses, their fears. She looked up, saw the Fool's eyes blazing with evil fire, and she realized what had been bothering her all along.
The Fool did have a weakness.
It was called a phylactery, a container of some kind in which the lich stored its life force in exchange for powers granted by the gods or otherworldly forces of darkness.
Usually these phylacteries were heavily guarded by the lich, hidden in some secret place, for if the phylactery were ever destroyed, the lich would be destroyed, its life force claimed by the entity that originally had granted its dark powers.
What if a lich, or a different, more powerful type of lich, had become so arrogant that it no longer guarded its phylactery? What if this master lich, in its egotistical sense of invulnerability, even wore its phylactery, say, as an ornament, a piece of jewelry, out in the open for all to desire?
Cwelanas knew then what she must do.
The others stayed protected behind the kender's psionic shield. Cwelanas took a deep breath and gathered all her strength, giving form to all the rage and frustration she had felt, helpless in the Fool's grasp.
Then, in one swift lunge, Cwelanas leaped to her feet. Her heavy chain uncoiled and she flung herself between the combatants, swinging the chain in the air. With the snap of brittle bones, the chain whipped around the Fool's head.
One bony hand shot up and grasped her wrist. The Fool laughed in her face, his skull splintered above its right, dead eye. ' You cannot hurt me, woman. You-'
Then its eyes seemed to widen in fear. Her other hand had found the Fool's amulet and gripped it tightly in one fist. She yanked hard once. A golden link shot away from the necklace, and the amulet came loose from the Fool's neck.
'No!' it screamed. 'Nd. Give me that'.'
Cwelanas shoved the Fool away. It staggered back a step, then rushed for her, fury blazing in its hollow eyes.
But her arm was back. She put all her strength behind the throw, and suddenly the amulet was sent flying across the chamber, to be plucked from the air effortlessly by the Cloakmaster.
'Destroy it!' Cwelanas screamed. 'Destroy it now!'
The Cloakmaster dropped it to the floor, and he brought the heavy heel of his boot down upon it, shattering the ruby facets.
With an explosion of scarlet energies, the amulet burst. The Cloakmaster stepped away as crimson smoke erupted in a widening circle in the floor. A storm of orange and black smoke, streams of magical fire and raw power, shone through the widening circle of light to cast its deep red glow upon the Fool's horrified countenance.
The circle of flame fluctuated, widened, flaring brilliantly with extraplanar energies, then a great shadow
