The rats leaped and scrambled over each other in their frenzy to reach the Cloakmaster. The warriors lashed out with their swords and their heavy boots, but the rats swarmed from under the door with increasing ferocity, spitting chunks of wood from their bleeding mouths. Sweat ran from the warriors' faces as they speared the vermin on their blades, and CassaRoc's bar ran with the rats' black blood.
Then the wooden door rocked under the impact of a great weight. Again the door shuddered in its frame. The heavy iron bolt squealed as the weight hammered the door again and again.
Then the bolt sprang out of its braces and the wooden door shot open. A wave of rats poured into the room, chattering with unnatural hunger, and, from the corridor beyond, a large black creature crawled in on eight clawed legs. Its long yellow teeth gleamed in the light, and it focused its eellike eyes on Teldin and smiled. Gray drool oozed from its lips.
"A neogi," CassaRoc said.
"No, look!" Teldin said, pointing. "It's the one Na'Shee shot when I crashed on board."
The neogi hissed at Teldin, focusing its black eyes on him. A bloody crossbow bolt protruded straight through its neck.
Teldin said, "It's undead."
"Distracted are they," said one squat lieutenant, crouching in the shadows at the bottom of the Tower of Thought.
"Undead of the rats because."
"Guards all main level on. This way follow."
The two furry shapes scurried up the tower's back stairs. Their black claws clacked against the stone. Behind them, two muscular shapes followed, lumbering blindly up the stairs.
On the upper level, they paused to listen through the wooden door. At the leader's command, the tallest of the huge shapes opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit corridor.
The guards at the door stared openly and quickly whipped out their swords, but the giant intruders reached them in seconds. One guard went down from a single hammering blow to his forehead. The other managed one lunge at his grotesque attacker, then was gripped from behind. His attacker's mandibles quickly closed on the guard's soft neck, and he died as his blood spilled onto the floor.
The intruders opened the door to Cwelanas's quarters. She lay in the bed, in restful sleep.
The furred black leader grinned. "Now… now, ours the shemeat is. Soon, soon, cloak perhaps ours will be."
Silently, the Unhuman intruders approached Cwelanas.
Chapter Sixteen
"… Many obstacles the Cloakmaster must overcome, for enemies many he will find, chief among them the unreason and hatred that unhumans generate for all others. It is this hatred, many believe, that has created a being which leeches off the soul of the Spelljammer, whose desire is nothing less than the Spelljammer's destruction. Revenge is its heart; evil, its soul. " Was this evil once human? Doubtful is that, according to the legends that have circulated for years… "But that is all we have: legends, rumorsno facts… "Of but one thing we can be certain: great evil walks these decks…"
The undead neogi glared at Teldin with its black, empty eyes. Pinpricks of bright light shone from deep in its sockets- the Fool's eyes, Teldin knew. The neogi bared its needle-sharp teeth and waded through the undead rats toward the Cloakmaster.
Teldin raised his sword. Rats snapped at his boots as he leaped from the bar, diving for the neogi.
The neogi snarled as Teldin fell full upon it. They went down together, into the onrush of rats. Teldin wrapped his legs around the neogi's bulbous torso and held back its snapping face with his forearm. His sword plunged deep into its round belly. Black blood gushed from the wound.
The rats around them scratched at Teldin's face and arms, gnashing their yellow teeth. He winced as he felt long fangs sink into his thigh, others in the back of his leg.
The neogi rolled through the rats, trying to shake Teldin off. His grip on it was tight. His sword slashed down and down, countless times into the fat, undead flesh, and the neogi still snapped at Teldin's face and neck, seeking his warm blood. Teldin felt the sting of rat bites across his legs, across his arms, and several in his sides. His blood was warm and sticky, oozing from dozens of small wounds, and he could tell that the scent of his blood was driving the undead rats into a frenzy of hunger.
Teldin pressed hard against the neogi's neck, bending back its head. He kicked out with his bloody legs, feeling his feet sink deep into its coid flesh. With one mighty lunge, a bone in its neck cracked, and Teldin hurled the neogi away. It fell against the wall with a wet, sickening crunch.
The Cloakmaster struggled to stand upright, panting with exhaustion. The rats scrambled up his cloak, leaping for his arms and neck. The neogi rose across from him, its head lolling on a hideously broken neck. Its black eyes watched him ferally, and with a tortured scream, the neogi leaped over the rats.
It gnashed its teeth at him in the air. Teldin swung his sword in one swift motion, and the blade sliced cleanly through the neogi's neck. Blood twirled through the air in an arc. The undead neogi's head dropped into the wave of rats. Its jaws snapped once, then stopped. It took a single, involuntary step forward on its sharp claws; then, as if sensing that some vital part of it was missing, the neogi body staggered, then fell over onto the floor, instantly smothered by the undead rats.
Rats were covering Teldin's arms, his back. He tore them off with a swipe of his hand, then could feel them jumping, replacing their brothers, on his shoulders, his legs. CassaRoc screamed for him, but the rats were leaping at his face, drawing blood on his cheeks. He felt teeth at his neck and wrenched two rats away with his bloody hands.
Then a furry snout dove into his cheek. He heard the clack of teeth snapping for his eyes, and he flung himself away, squeezing his eyes tight. He stumbled onto the floor. He felt the rats scurrying beneath him, then over him, over his legs, closing their jaws in his flesh. He felt dizzy. He knew he was bleeding from countless tiny wounds, and he blindly waved his sword defiantly through the rats' midst.
But the undead came on, seething toward him in an unstoppable mass. He jerked himself up from the floor and spun, trying to shake off the rats, squeezing them in his hands until their bones snapped beneath his fingers.
Then the room spun. His head tingled with cold: not with the power of the cloak, but from the numbness of losing blood, from the physical shock of countless wounds.
He fell to the floor as he heard his friends shouting his name. But his sight went black as the rats fell upon him, and he could hear only the snapping of their teeth.
Gaye involuntarily took a step back. She could feel the immensity of the Fool's evil wash over her in a cold black wave. Her astral body stood revealed in a pale silver light.
She could still see through the eyes of the Fool's undead rats as they followed the Cloakmaster through the Tower of Thought. Then he ran into the common room and slammed the door on the vermin.
Darkness. Gaye shuddered and willed her own vision to return.
The undead master watched her, clucking his tongue almost in laughter. What have we here? he said. An impudent kender, who pretends command overpowers she knows nothing of.
Gaye searched her memory. He was a lich, she was sure, but what kind?
They circled each other slowly, warily. She reached out with her psionic senses to test his strengths and weaknesses, feeling a tickle on her skin as she realized he was doing the same to her.
She felt the blackness that permeated each cell of his body, the corruption that had laid claim to his once-human form. She could feel the enormous powers contained within him, the absence of life, the hatred for love. She focused on the pinpricks of energy that served as his eyes. They grew in her mind, until they were blazing like suns.. twin suns of cold, dark fire.