Its core, its soul, shone in the black Broken Sphere with the light of a nova.
The soul of the spaakiil merged with the surviving fragment of Aeyenna.
The explosion was exultant, holy.
The Spelljammer's wake of phlogiston ignited immediately, merging in flame with the ship's soul, with the swirling, living matter of the Spelljammer and the star it had killed.
He could feel the great ship's enemies dying instantly, like a candle snuffed out with a single, powerful breath. He felt his own people die, then merge together, like butterflies on the wind. He felt the locusts and their helmsmen burn away, without pain, to transform into pure energy. He felt the foul flesh of B'Laath'a, of the Fool, see true light for the first time, and he hoped their souls knew peace.
His energies exploded outward and vibrated against the wall of the cracked sphere. The energies, merging with the chaotic matter of the flow, reshaped, reformed. They swirled, condensed, creating a new inner shell for the Broken Sphere. Fractures were filled, made whole with the energies from the Spelljammer's sacrifice. With each explosion of matter, with each resultant expulsion of raw energy, the immeasurable gap in the sphere slowly closed.
Cwelanas watched, screaming, with the mental view from her ship's helm. The flow before the smalljamrner was spotted with a large fleet of vessels, all bearing down upon her. She knew she could not defeat them. She knew she could not get into even a single battle, for the smalljamrner had no weapons aboard.
Then, in her mind's eye she saw the Broken Sphere, behind her, light up impossibly from inside. She felt people die in a single blaze of pure white light. She felt the Spelljammer…
No! she thought. TELDIN!
She spun the smalljamrner about and desperately headed for the sphere. She broke out in a cold sweat and felt the cabin waver dizzily around her. CassaRoc and Chaladar shouted at her, but she could not hear them for the thunderous beating in her own ears.
In the instant before she passed out, she heard-felt-a voice, a soul.
Yes, it was Teldin, one last time.
She felt a song, his song, echo through her very being. It was an ancient song, one of fate, of wonder, a song of life.
She halted the smalljammers movement, and the ship sat silently in the flow while her friends gathered around her and she wept.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
'… And it is written that the Cloak of the First Pilot will deliver the Last Pilot to the throne of Creannon, the Destined One. 'And the Last Pilot shall sow the seeds of Creannon s destiny, and shall rejoice in the budding of new life. 'For that which was lost will be restored; and that which will be lost shall be restored…'
The fleet surrounded the smalljamrner without incident. It was a fleet of sidewheelers, all gnomish make, and two elven armadas, and she recognized the military bearing of the fleet's leader instantly.
Herphan Gomja, the giff who had befriended Teldin at the start of his quest, wept openly at news of the Cloakmaster's death. He and the ships under Vallus Leafbower's command had arrived too late to defend the Spelljammer, but Gomja saw new purpose in the deliverance of Cwelanas and the Spelljammer's progeny.
They stayed for a day in orbit around the Broken Sphere, and they marveled at the ebony crystalline wall that stretched before them, blotting out the horizon. The shell was perfectly intact, and it glowed as though with an inner life, energy flickering through the shell like thoughts: generating, regenerating, creating.
The Broken Sphere was no more, for it had been renewed.
The warriors aboard the smalljammer were offered posts on the ships of the gnomish-elven fleet. No one wanted to decide on anything just yet, preferring to stay with Cwelanas for this leg, the first leg, of her own quest throughout the spheres. This war was over, and each person had seen all too much of battle since the Cloakmaster's arrival. The mind flayer stayed with Cwelanas as well, and he studied the sphere while they lingered in orbit.
With the War for the Spelljammer over, the ships turned away from the sphere, the Spelljammer Sphere, as Estriss was calling it, and headed deeper into the flow.
Cwelanas found her friends outside, on the observation deck, staring behind them at the slowly receding black sphere. They turned at her approach. Djan put a hand on her shoulder. ' Verenthestae,' he said. 'All is as it should be.'
She nodded, wishing it were otherwise. They all watched the sphere in silence for a time, then the mind flayer looked up.
My observations are not complete, but I have discovered something interesting, he said.
Na'Shee baished back her hair and turned. CassaRoc leaned forward on the rail and tried to look farther into the flow, as though he were searching for something.
'What have you found?' Cwelanas asked.
Estriss gestured toward the Spelljammer Sphere. The sphere is somehow locked from entrance. We could not open portals to sail inside, even if we tried.
'I know,' she said.
The mind flayer nodded. But there are thin parts in the crystal, where the shell is still forming. It is not opaque at those points.
'What is it, Estriss? What did you see?'
His eyes crinkled happily, as though he had witnessed all the wonders of the universe.
A new birth. A new beginning. A sun, Estriss said. I believe I saw a new sun.
Epilogue
'Here begins the log of Creannon, the Spelljammer, and the Last Pilot, who is now the First…'
The eternal blackness of cold, empty space, a void of nothingness, was momentarily dispelled. First an almost infinitesimal glimmer of light appeared where before there had been nothing, then an immeasurable expulsion of pure, blinding power ripped the contours of space and time and spewed energy-pebbles, trails, streams of raw power-across the black, eternal, timeless sea.
In the center of the explosion, a shape, a living thing, feeding off the fires of creation, began to coalesce inside the raw, swirling phlogiston.
It glowed from within, magic and energy pulsing like rivers of fire through the veins that had once been called warrens.
Creannon, the Spelljammer, sailed from the doorway its own death had created and spread its great wings into wild-space. The nova of its birth dissipated. The Spelljammer sang into a cold, sunless night that it had never before experienced in the forever light of the flow.
— The universe, the Spelljammer said, is ours.
— It is reborn.
The soul of Teldin marveled at the emptiness of this universe. Here the powers and the matter of the flow had been transformed into raw, untamed energy, and he could feel through the Spelljammer's senses that the
