Teldin shook his head. "I don't know. It's just a feeling…" He looked down at the amulet, where he clutched his chest, and felt a shock ripple across his skin. "Paladine's blood! What…?"
He ripped open his shirt.
Above his heart, his skin glowed in the shape of the amulet, j j The flesh was warm, pulsating with a tingle of gentle heat. "The design!" Teldin said.
A pattern, a maze inside the circular ring, glowed on his chest. He remembered the message from Gaye: Follow the woven heart.
"This is how I find it," he said. " 'Follow the woven heart.' Somehow, this is a map… no, a compass, that will lead me to the adytum."
CassaRoc came over and placed his finger on the glowing pattern. "I don't feel a thing." "It's warm," Teldin said. "Not to me. Is it always like this?"
"This is the first time I've seen it." He thought for a moment. "No. I saw it in a dream. But I don't think it was really a dream."
CassaRoc looked questioningly at Chaladar, then back to Teldin. "Maybe it's time to go looking for this… adytum of yours."
"Maybe," Teldin said, "but I don't know what to do once I get there. Perhaps a visit to the library tower would be best."
A guard then entered the room and told CassaRoc that an elven messenger had arrived with a decision. The leaders decided to go down and receive the elf alone, as he had been ordered to hurry back to the Elven High Command and assist in the battle against the goblins.
Several minutes later, Teldin nervously paced the confines of CassaRoc's common room, waiting for CassaRoc and Chaladar to return.
Despite his host's generosity and the increasing trust and loyalty of his warriors, Teldin was growing increasingly claustrophobic inside the Tower of Thought. It had been hours since his conversation with Cwelanas, and the uncertainty of the entire situation on board the Spelljammer had begun to gnaw at him..
He did not crave action or bloodshed; he simply wanted to get out of the damned tower and explore, to search, to finally do what he had come here for.
He touched his amulet and watched the light reflect off its engraved surface. Is this the feeling Estriss had asked about? The yearning to be active, to search for his answers out there, among the others?
Is this the call?
He walked behind the bar and poured himself a mug of cold water, then gulped down half the mug and filled it up again.
The desire to leave, to get something done, burned at him like the sign of the amulet upon his chest.
He looked up suddenly and cocked his head. There had been a noise from somewhere outside, like a clap of thunder, or an explosion. Out in the hall he heard shouting and the sound of the warriors' feet as they rushed to their positions throughout the tower.
He flung open the door. "What's going on?" he shouted.
There were cries from above, then a warrior rushed by. Teldin reached out and grabbed his arm. "Wait. What's happening?"
The fighter gasped, then managed, "The neogi. They've started fighting the neogi." Then he turned and ran up the tower stairs.
Teldin heard more warriors rushing up the stairs, then CassaRoc and Chaladar ran up beside him. "The war has definitely begun," CassaRoc said. "Chaladar's scouts spied the start of the battle not five minutes ago. The beholders, the minotaurs, and the ogres just couldn't wait. They're all in it together."
"They're in the neogi tower now," Chaladar said. "They may not be able to hold it. Already a fire has started. The explosion blackened the face of the beholder ruins. The minotaurs are struggling to put it out, but who knows what will happen with this war? Their pointless battles may destroy us all."
"What are we going to do?" Teldin asked.
"Nothing," CassaRoc said. "Absolutely nothing… yet." He held up a folded piece of paper, decorated with a broken seal of red wax. "A communique from our friends, the elves."
He cleared his throat. " "We, the Elven High Command of the Sphere Wanderer Spelljammer, do hereby promise all aid and assistance during the coming times of war to the Cloakmaster, Teldin Moore. We do hereby sign in treaty with the Cloakmaster and his allies, the Human Collective, to fight to the death our mortal enemies, and to ensure the safety and purity of the elven race.' "
"And it's signed by Stardawn and the elven leader himself, Admiral Drova Highstar."
Teldin took it from CassaRoc and read it, though slowly. Teldin had never read very much, nor very well. "Can we believe this?"
Chaladar shrugged. "Personally, I trust very few people. These elves think they're needed everywhere, or nothing would get done. Frankly, I'd rather have them with us than against us, but I don't want them at all.
"Ah, well. The Human Collective will never fall, even if the elves fight against us."
"And Stardawn?" Teldin said.
"Trust your mind flayer friend on that," CassaRoc said. "Stardawn is his own man. He has his own agenda."
"What does that mean?" Chaladar inquired.
"'Means I wouldn't trust him farther than I could spit," CassaRoc said.
" 'He's mad that trusts in the honor of an elf.' "
They both stared at Chaladar.
He shrugged. "Poetry. I read it somewhere."
The Cloakmaster spoke to himself. "They're all so formal and proper, the elves, but in the end," he said, crumpling the message, "it's just a piece of paper."
Chaladar nodded. "Well said."
CassaRoc finished the ale he had earlier left on the table. He made a face; it had grown too warm. "Come on," he said. "Why don't we go up to the Guild tower and take a look?"
Teldin said, "At what?"
CassaRoc smiled. "The battle with the neogi. We can see over the ship from the top of the Guild. With luck, the neogi and the others will kill each other off. Maybe we won't have to fight them at all."
"Too bad," Chaladar said, smiling grimly. "Too bad."
CassaRoc led the way down into the lower floors of the tower. There, a series of passages led to the other human towers, and across into the cavernous Human Collective.
Leoster's guards recognized CassaRoc and Chaladar and let the three men pass. Within the Guild tower, Teldin saw many of King Leoster's fellow nobles going about their daily duties; but many more were occupied with activities that clearly fell beyond their chores as noble warriors: gardening, researching such topics as the temperatures of differing wildspace and the tooth sizes of Unhuman races, and collecting games and ancient books. One noble, a council member named Charnom, even boasted an extensive collection of jokes from across the known spheres… most of which were off-color, and had to do with buxom females of all the known races,
At the top of the Guild tower, six guards had been posted, keeping watch on all sides. The Rainbow Ocean was a flare of brilliant colors, a swirling chaos surrounding the Spelljammer on all sides. Teldin, CassaRoc, and Chaladar went to the starboard side and peered over the roofs of the other buildings, toward the neogi tower. CassaRoc pointed. "There. Do you see?" Teldin was instead looking for the trail of wreckage left by the Julia across the Spelljammer's wing. He felt a sense of loss, of innocence left behind, but he could not find the wreckage on the wing; it appeared that some great hand had swooped down and cleared away the charred debris.
"There!" Chaladar cried. Teldin turned and saw a plume of black smoke rising into the ship's huge air bubble from a thick, round tower at the stern. A band of minotaurs was struggling to put out what was left of the fire before the resulting explosions of phlogiston brought the tower down upon their heads.
"They better get that out soon," CassaRoc said. "The Spelljammer could be in trouble if the flow were to explode too much."
The warriors watched for a while, but the real battle had been pushed into the tower. One of Chaladar's guards said that the ogres had forced their way inside, cutting senselessly through a flank of about twenty neogi and their umber hulks. The reptilian neogi had retreated into their tower, followed quickly by the attacking ogres and their monstrous allies. Even from this great distance, Teldin could easily make out pools of blood spattering the deck.