A squadron of ten of CassaRoc's warriors charged from the neogi tower and formed a half-circle around the entrance. Immediately, Teldin's party ran through the door and was encircled by the warriors as they started their run to the library tower.
The fighting was steadily increasing across the Spelljammer, as the fear of the Dark Times swelled unreasonably and chaos took sway. Goblins and elves battled ferociously near the minotaur tower, which had been abandoned since the alliance of the minotaurs with the eye tyrants. Behind them, near the beholder ruins, the humans watched as a group of halflings beat back a trio of giants that had cornered them near the minotaur quarters.
From all corners of the Spelljammer, the clash of steel rang through the streets and alleys, punctuated by the wails of the dying and the war screams of the victors.
The warriors pushed their tightly knit wedge through the elf-goblin battle, scattering the unhumans with a minimum of bloodshed. The fighting was rapidly disintegrating into a free-for-all, and Teldin had organized this protective wedge to get his party through the nearest bottleneck of fighters, so that they could make a run past the goblin quarters for the library.
Past the minotaur tower, where they easily cut through a halfhearted gauntlet of ragged goblin fighters, the human wedge split apart and doubled back to the neogi tower. Teldin, CassaRoc, Chaladar, Estriss, Djan, and Na'Shee quickened their pace and bolted across a wide expanse of open deck for the library tower, situated alongside the captain's tower. Here, the ship was free of fighting and bloodshed. Teldin afforded a quick glance up, into the flow, and his pace slowed momentarily. The fleets encroaching on the Spelljammer were almost there. Teldin quickly gauged the distance to the closest vessel, a wasp ship, and decided it would be within ballista distance within half an hour.
"We see them!" Chaladar shouted. "Come on, Cloakmaster! We can do no good out here!"
They turned at the corner of the goblin quarters. The library tower, across the avenue, had been tightly sealed years ago, and the interior had never been seen since. The library's double doors were barricaded with brick and mortar, probably thick enough to withstand a battering ram, Teldin guessed.
"What now?" CassaRoc asked. He idly scratched his thickly bearded chin.
"I know you told me the tower had been sealed, but I had no idea it was this fortified," Teldin said.
Chaladar offered, "We should have brought a battering ram."
They had talked about a ram before, in the neogi tower, but the neogi had no use for battering rams, and the humans did not want to take a chance fighting their way across to the Tower of Thought. Too many lives could be lost.
Teldin stared at his objective and sighed angrily. There were no windows, no other doors, nothing.
"Damn."
Teldin felt himself staring at the sealed doors, and without realizing it at first, his arms began to sizzle with the familiar embrace of his cloak's energy. He heard CassaRoc say something, but the words seemed sluggish, barely understandable.
The muscles in his arms burned with fire. The energy flowed through him, embodying his frustration, his anger. Time slowed around him; the edge of his vision was a blur, and all he could see was the stone and mortar blocking him from his goal.
His mind swam, and, with certainty, he felt I'm supposed to be here.
He slid his sword from its scabbard. The energy that fluctuated through him shot out of his hands. As though it were encased in an aura, the energies of the cloak infused his steel and lit the metal from within, burning with a light that was pure and radiant, explosive.
A scream echoed in his ears, then Teldin realized it was a cry from his own mouth as he leaped up the short flight of steps and swung the sword into the stone barrier.
The sword broke through rock with a clap of thunder. His steel was invulnerable, alive, biting through the stone as though it were bread. Mortar and rock and brick flew out from the onslaught of the Cloakmaster's powerful blade, and he attacked the barrier again, relentlessly, heedless of the chalk and dust that surrounded him in a pale cloud.
The others stood frozen as the Cloakmaster disappeared in the cloud of dust, a raging berserker against a wall of rock. "Teldin!" CassaRoc shouted. "Are you all right?"
Chunks of brick and stone rained to the deck. There was a final cry, then the dust settled slowly and Teldin stood before a gaping hole in the barrier, untouched by the dust that had surrounded him. The wooden doors inside had been no match for the sharp power of Teldin's blade. The Cloakmaster had splintered a wide hole through the doors, and the darkness inside beckoned them with mystery.
He turned to face his companions. The power still pulsed through him; they could see the lines of rage and inner strength mapped like pulsating veins across his face. Then he sagged as the power of the cloak flooded out of him. At once, the sword began to vibrate in his hand, and, with a loud snap that echoed off the tower walls, the sword shattered into bent pieces of battered steel and clanged to his feet.
The warriors joined Teldin at the top of the stairs. Chaladar handed him a spare sword from his belt. "Good work," the paladin said understatedly.
Teldin was silent. He pointed his new sword toward the ragged gap in the door. "Let's go," he said, then he crawled through.
Once inside, he stared up into the blackness, waiting as the warriors each came through and stopped behind him. Na'Shee reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out one of the Spelljammer's smaller light rods, which was essentially a hand-sized crystal of the same luminescent material that made up the ship's light panels. Djan did the same, and the library was lit with a dim, bluish glow that barely reached the edge of the second floor.
They stood in a meager foyer, and tall pillars stretched up into the darkness to some point high above. The pillars were cracked, blackened with the fiery evidence of the destruction that had gone on here years before.
Around them, bookshelves stretched away into the shadows, but the shelves were bare except for thick black drifts of ash that fluttered in the breeze singing through the doors. The shelves themselves were but blackened skeletons of their former selves; the ladders that led up to them were charred and useless.
"What went on here?" Djan mused, turning to take in all the destruction.
Chaladar spoke reverently. The thick smell of smoke and soot hung on everything like a shroud. "It was during the time of Jokarin the Bold, or so the legend goes. Neridox, a mad wizard, was supposed to have sealed himself up here in the tower. As to the fire that obviously raged through here, I have no clue. This is not part of the tale."
The group slowly spread out on the lower floor. At the rear of the building, a flight of stone steps led up into the balconies that made up the second floor. The floor was covered with layers of ash and soot and lay undisturbed by the passage of time or by previous visitors.
Teldin stopped at a bookcase and reached out. He pulled a chunk of blackened leather from a mound of ash and wiped it off with his fingers. He could read part of a title written in gold:
Ok f the ere derer
He tossed it to the black floor. "There is nothing here," he said to himself, "nothing here at all."
"All these books," Djan said. "Gone. What good does it do to burn a book?"
"It is the evil that men do," Chaladar said softly, "that must be cleansed, not the wisdom that can lead them out of the darkness and into light."
There is a another level, Estriss said in Teldin's mind. The others heard the mind flayer as well, and they turned toward the Cloakmaster.