"The dwarves of Kova number three hundred. We will fight by you, Teldin Cloakmaster, or we will die."
Firespitter agreed. "We number only about a hundred in the Free Dwarves' tower, Cloakmaster, but we will gladly fight by your side, for life and for peace throughout the spheres."
"Good," Teldin said. "Excellent." He faced the halflings.
Hancherback stood proudly. "We're with you, Cloakmaster, all two hundred of us. We're small, but we'll give those neogi- and anybody else- a run for their money."
Firespitter lifted his ale in a toast. The others rose and lifted their mugs. "To Teldin Cloakmaster," Firespitter said, "to peace, and to- " he thought, stroking his decorated beard "- to the Alliance of the Cloak!"
Chapter Six
"… We are naturally superior. No one shall escape the fury of our righteousness…"
Death came to the minotaur tower quickly and mercilessly.
The minotaur guard at the tower door was initially shocked to see three of the xenophobic beholders floating past his post. He was even more surprised when one turned toward him and grinned, baring its ugly, misshapen teeth in a feral smile. A small eye on one of its ten eyestalks turned toward the guard. A yellow beam of intense light flared, and instantly the minotaur staggered back, no longer in control of its own mind.
The beholder turned to its companions. "Our first slave of the war," it said, laughing.
They proceeded into the tower stealthily, the enslaved minotaur leading the way through the narrow corridors. At each door, the minotaur would enter and the beholders would charm other minotaurs with beams from their eyes.
Most of the tower's forty minotaurs were their slaves by the time the beholders reached the quarters of the minotaur leader, Hammerstun Breakox. One minotaur knocked on the door and said, woodenly, "Lord Breakox, we must speak with you."
The answer from inside was swift. "Come!"
The beholders ordered nine minotaurs to enter and surreptitiously surround their leader.
Breakox was huge, more than sixteen feet tall- twice as tall as the other minotaurs and four times as fierce. When the minotaurs did not speak, Breakox stood and said, "What is this?"
The minotaurs were silent.
In an instant, Breakox knew that something was wrong with his warriors, and he lunged for the mammoth axe that leaned against the wall.
The minotaurs jumped him. Breakox struggled blindly, kicking with his mighty hooves, crushing a warrior's nose. But their numbers were too strong. They pinned him to the floor, his huge arms pulled back and held by minotaurs on each side.
Breakox bellowed loudly for his warriors to attack, but when he heard the beholders laughing coarsely as they entered the room, he knew that the cause was lost, that all of his warriors must be enslaved.
The three beholders approached. A minotaur pulled back Breakox's shaggy head so that its masters could fully see the great minotaur's submission.
As one, the beholders stared at Breakox with their eyes of charm. Three yellow beams lanced from their deadly eyes.
Breakox squirmed against the minotaurs who held him. He felt the magic working its way into his eyes. He closed them tightly and screamed defiantly.
The power of their eye beams flared back toward them. The beholders flinched and floated back, their charm spells ineffective against the minotaur leader. They blinked in pain; no one had ever held his own against even one beholder's powerful eyes. Beneath them, Breakox laughed. "You will never enslave me, monsters! I will forever be free!"
The beholders huddled among themselves and whispered together. They parted and approached the captive leader. "You are, perhaps, correct, minotaur. We doubt that you could ever serve the beholder empire in any capacity. Therefore, you must die. Your head will be carried by our armies as a warning to others. In death, you will serve."
The beholders focused on a tall minotaur warrior who bore a broken horn. Stiffly, he walked over to Breakox's great axe and picked it up. Sweat broke out on the minotaur's snout; Breakox could see that his warrior was struggling to break the beholder's Unhuman control, and, inside, he smiled, for his warriors were courageous, even in defeat.
The one-horned minotaur gripped the axe with two hands and brought it above his head.
Breakox struggled suddenly and threw one warrior off his shoulder. The others pounced on him; he could see the horror of what they were doing reflected in their eyes.
They held him down. His chin was pressed hard against the floor.
He bellowed, one last scream of hatred and defiance. He could see in the eyes of his minotaurs their great fear, their useless struggle against the beholders' mind control.
The great axe swung down.
A beholder gestured a thin eyestalk and ordered a minotaur downstairs. At the base of the tower, the minotaur opened the huge door and allowed Gray Eye to float in, his glimmering ioun stones whirling around his scaly body. Behind him, ShiCaga, the chieftess of the ogres, strode in, towering a good four feet above the minotaurs. An evil smile flickered across her craggy face. "This is good," she said to Gray Eye. "Very, very good."
In the chambers of the slain minotaur leader, ShiCaga and Gray Eye agreed to an unholy alliance. Together, with the combined forces of the ogre and beholder communities- and with their numerous slavesthey would destroy the neogi and mind flayers. And with the ogre chieftess's sons at the lead of forty ogre warriors, the human forces would later be destroyed- in revenge for the death of ShiCaga's husband, and to secure the ship's stores for their unholy alliance.
Gray Eye wanted something else. He wanted the cloak, and the ogres were just stupid enough to help him take it.
Then the ship would be his.
The rasping, sinister laughter of the beholders rang throughout the tower.
Chapter Seven
"… I have had visions, mother, visions of worlds beyond this one. I know that I must be hallucinating, or dreaming, but they are so real. I have seen suns born and whole worlds spin on their axes. And I saw a black pearl as it cracked, from the inside out. I do not understand these things, but I know that I must leave here to seek something more, something wondrous, and something that is better than the life I have here…"
Teldin, CassaRoc, and the giff, dwarf, and halfling leaders talked among themselves for an hour after their agreement to become allies, making broad, preliminary plans for defense and explaining to Teldin the multifaceted-and sometimes highly confusing-political situations aboard the Spelljammer. The ship was more crowded than he had originally thought, holding whole communities of illithids, goblins, neogi, dra-cons, ogres, beholders, elves-it was all too much, and Teldin finally decided that it just did not really matter, as long as he could get the answers he needed.
Privately Teldin and his allies were all worried that no word had been sent from the elves or the Shou. The Shou were largely unknown to Teldin, but he had had enough untrustworthy dealings with the elves to last him a lifetime, and he decided it would be best to consider them both, for the present, as potential enemies.