The scro ship penetrated the Spelljammer's air envelope. One missile, shot from atop the Armory, impaled one of the ship's great forelegs. The battlewagon rocked with the impact of a heavy load of iron shot.
Then the scro aimed the wildfire projector, and the top of the Dark Tower was engulfed in flames that licked up the Spelljammer's tail. The scro hopped and laughed on the deck of the Eviscerator and aimed again. Fire splattered the base of the Armory in a wide swath that blazed through the Old Elvish Academy and the Academy of Human Knowledge. The flames spread from roof to roof, and soon the Long Fangs' tower and the beholder ruins were eaten by fire. Phlogiston exploded chaotically, raining rubble down upon the decks.
Missiles from the Spelljammer embedded into the battlewagon like spears. The scro ship twisted evasively, ignoring most of the Spelljammer's attacks by staying far to starboard, off the wing. Inside the control cabin, the scro helmsman sweated copiously in a struggle to keep the ship out of danger, yet still in a position where it could dive in easily and whittle away at the Spelljammer's defenses
… and kill as many hells-spawned elves as possible.
Concentrating on the scene outside, transmitted to him by the Eviscerator's helm, the helmsman did not notice a golden glow appear at his side. He did not notice the shape of a woman materialize and beckon to him, her fingers stretched at strange angles, her gaze fixed upon his face. He jerked once, violently, struggling in his mind as a superior force battled with his subconscious. He suddenly stood and awkwardly faced her.
His eyes were wide with fear as first one of his arms went up into the air, then another. He watched helplessly as his right leg came up involuntarily, and he started hopping. The battlewagon began to slow. It listed to port as the helmsman's mind strayed from controlling the ship's course and speed. Gaye could hear shouts from the decks above as the ship continued to list.
'What are you doing?' he screamed in the Common tongue.
'Stop this! Stop this now! You'll kill us all!'
Gaye stopped. Instead, she concentrated. The scro pulled a short sword from his scabbard. His eyes widened even more. 'No!' he shouted. 'No!'
He brought the point of his sword to his unprotected chest. The sharp point dug into his flesh. Blood welled in a shiny, thick drop. 'You can't do this to me! You can't!'
Then he gasped, as his body was flung against a wall and the impact pushed the sword into his heart. He fell to his knees, then pitched over.
'Yes, I can,' Gaye said calmly.
The battered battlewagon listed dangerously to port and began its descent. The door to the cabin burst open, and a contingent of scro warriors charged in, their weapons drawn.
Gaye concentrated and felt the psionic energies building inside her, unstoppable. She looked down. Her hand was glowing white-hot with the power of her own life force.
Life, she thought, for Teldin, for the Spelljammer. Let destiny be served.
She was stronger, more powerful, than she had ever felt before. The scro warriors came to a halt only a few feet from her. Her powers flickered around her like a thing alive, blistering their orclike faces with the heat of a star. They scrambled to get away, but Gaye let the feeling of purity, of heat, rush over her, and then she was one-one with Teldin, one with the Spelljammer, seeing their united, eternal destiny in a flare of energy that lit the phlogiston like a blazing star.
The Eviscerator's foredeck blew apart in a single burst of stellar fire. When the phlogiston exploded in a blazing sphere, half the battlewagon was ruptured, shattered and torn apart into shreds and splinters, its hull blackened and blistered. It arced down like a dying comet, down through the flow… on a collision course with the Spelljammer.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
'… It is all forgotten. I leave all my collected knowledge here in the Orb, for I fear that great harm will come to the library, and the wisdom of man and the gods will be stolen from the Wanderer. 'The Orb will wait here for those with the courage and the insight to find it and use it. I cannot leave this place, and so cannot share my strange tales of adventure with others but in this small way. Here I leave the history of the spheres, the secrets of the Bonding, and here I leave the key to Creannon, and the mapof its future, far beyond this mortal plane…'
They could do nothing but watch helplessly, frozen, as Cwelanas battled the neogi. They had been caught unawares as Cwelanas ran to check the hangar door. B'Laath'a, waiting in the cover of the jamberry trees, had stepped out and cast a spell at them, holding them immobile where they stood.
They watched as Cwelanas killed Coh and the mage leaped to take his place. Then B'Laath'a was destroyed with the power of her chain mail. Cwelanas fell to the ground. The spell holding the warriors was broken with B'Laath'a's death, and they jumped to help the elf.
She was barely awake, shivering as though with intense cold. CassaRoc knew a bad fever when he saw one, and this one was the worst he had ever seen. 'You'll be all right. We need to get you a healer. Can you take the helm like this?'
She tried to shrug. 'It doesn't matter,' she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. 'I have to, don't I?'
CassaRoc pushed back a strand of hair. The wounds in her shoulder were angry and red, puckered like craters and surrounded by yellow and blue bruises. 'Are you sure?'
Cwelanas smiled through her pain. She felt her body shiver with a reserve of energy, and her pain began to slowly recede. The chain mail Teldin had given her played its power through her like a healing flow of energy. 'I think I will be fine. Teldin has taken care of that. We must go.'
In the smalljammers control room, CassaRoc helped Cwelanas take her seat. Instantly, she felt better, at peace, as the ship warmed to her touch. Its energies flowed through her, giving her strength. 'We still have to get out of the gardens,' she observed.
The others looked at her, confused. They had never caught up with her to examine the hangar doors. 'What do you mean?' Djan asked. I thought Teldin told us to sail away from here.'
'Yes,' she said, 'but to cast off we must first get out of the gardens, and neither of the doors will open.'
CassaRoc shook his head sadly and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'Damn,' he said. 'Damn.'
The ship was pounded from above, and the collision reverberated like thunder above their heads. The Spelljammer shook as though it were being slammed by a giant hammer. The warriors sprawled to the cabin deck. The hammering came closer, closer, rolling heavily like a bouncing boulder, and the ship shook with its thudding impact.
The wall of the gardens exploded inward in a hail debris from the Spelljammer's thick hull. Rubble slammed against the smalljammer, then pattered like hard rain as the echo of the explosion died away.
Cwelanas looked up, coughing as she inhaled dust. The others stood around her.
'Look!' Na'Shee said, pointing.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
'… The Architects looked far into Egrestarrian's future and saw the day that a courageous warrior would lead the Offspring to its time of Rebirth. This warrior, they knew, would hold in his heart the strength of peace, a hatred of death, and a quest for a higher existence than that of his own plane. 'It is these noble desires with which they seeded Egrestarrian, the Compass, and the Cloak of the First Pilot; for they knew that the currents of destiny
