He spun abruptly. He eyes widened in sudden fear, and he reached for the sword hanging at his waist.
He cried out, "By the gods!"
But an adequate defense was too late. The neogi that had crept up behind him, held tight in the arms of its enslaved umber hulk, screamed an ululating cry of death at the Cloakmaster. The misshapen umber hulk, its mandibles clacking in rage, raised its broadsword high above its head and swiftly brought it down, straight down toward the Cloakmaster's skull.
Chapter Two
"… The few scrolls and books that remain from the beginning show that the survivors who sailed the Wanderer were far different from the barbarians I must share the Spelljammer with today. The early sailors cherished life, cherished diversity, and wished for no better life than to explore and bring peace to all peoples. " Today the populace lives in fear of unhumans and even their human brethren, and peace is a forgotten word, replaced by the lust for power and the fear that a particular way of life will be threatened from without…"
.
The citadel laid out upon the Spelljammer's broad back rose raggedly at the end of a long landing field, which lay at the ship's bow. The fore buildings held primarily the Spelljammer's human population and were devoted to the ship's politics and social functions. Aft, in the wide shadow of the Spelljammer's great tail, most of the ship's unhumans had formed their individual communities: beholders, illithids, dwarves, goblins, ogres, and dracons. Also aft were the buildings of the Long Fangs and the Tenth Pit, dark dens reserved for the foulest sailors upon the Rainbow Ocean.
Near the tower of the minotaurs and the ruins of the once great palace of the beholders, the squat neogi tower afforded a panoramic view of the Spelljammer's starboard wing. Neogi guards stationed atop the tower saw the Cloakmaster's ship as it rapidly closed with them, and they quickly shouted word- as they had been first ordered to do months ago-that a new vessel was approaching for a landing.
They had no idea that the Spelljammer, for reasons known only to itself, would not allow the Cloakmaster's landing to be an easy one.
So when the nautiloid crashed and exploded upon the starboard takeoff strips reserved for the ship's smalljammers, the neogi warriors who their leader, Master Coh, had deployed took advantage of the crash's unexpected proximity and scrambled across the wing like a swarm of black insects, frothing to attack the newcomers and kill anyone who might be the legendary Cloakmaster-the accursed Cloakmaster that had been foretold would soon arrive… and bring darkness upon the Spelljammer.
In the darkness of the neogi temple, Coh had been taking sinister pleasure in feeding the great old master when Teldin's nautiloid was first sighted. He had instantly ordered his squadron to attack upon landing, then he went on with the great old master's feeding, ordering his personal slave, a towering umber hulk named Orik, to throw in another gnoll slave that had teen stolen the week before.
Orik was fully four times Master Coh's height-the largest, most grotesque umber hulk on the Spelljammer-and his sharp mandibles clacked with sadistic glee. A symbol of interlocked circles had been tattooed upon the hulk's forehead, symbolizing Master Coh's ownership, and the umber hulk happily bent and lifted a squirming gnoll high above his head.
The gnoll thrashed in Orik's calloused claws. One of its tiny hands beat helplessly against the hulk's thick chest as its screams echoed through the temple. Orik laughed deep in his throat; he loved to hear the cries of the weak ones as they screamed for mercy.
The pit before which Coh and Orik stood was deep, filled with shadows and surrounded by flat tiers upon which Coh's neogi brethren could squat. Inside the stony pit, deep in the darkness and surrounded by the bloody bones of Coh's victims, squatted the bloated, obscene fonn of the great old master.
Master Coh lifted a claw in a sarcastic wave as Orik tossed the gnoll high in the air. The slave plummeted into the pit. It screamed once as it disappeared over the lip of the deep pit, then there was a sickening crunch as its bones cracked against the stony floor.
Coh lifted his bulbous, spidery body and scurried to tin-edge. Orik looked in wonderingly.
The shadows seemed to move in a far corner of the pit. There was yellow glimmer as two glazed eyes blinked open, and the great old master stirred from its nest.
The gnoll's wails of pain shattered the stillness as it tried to drag its broken legs away from the horror inching toward it.
The great old master had been the leader of the Spelljammer's neogi community until Coh had defeated it in a bloody coup. As light fell upon it, Coh grinned mercilessly, baring his yellow fangs in hatred at the master's mutated body.
The transformation into old age wrought horrible changes upon the neogi Their brown, hairy bodies enlarged to about twenty feet long, and their minds slowly wasted away until only feeding was important: the taste of raw meat, the heat of pulsing blood, were their only obsessions.
The great old master's shadow fell upon the disabled gnoll. The neogi's long black neck towered over him. Foul spittle oozed from the master's wide, gaping mouth, and light glimmered wickedly off its poisonous teeth. With one ferocious lunge, the master's eellike head snapped forward and took the gnoll into its mouth. Hones crunched under the strength of its mutated jaws, and the gnoll's screams faded like smoke on the wind.
Coh laughed and brushed back a tuft of its multicolored fur with one claw. His brown coat was resplendent with all the colors of the spectrum, paints and tattoos in shapes and symbols that signified his rank as a superior neogi. He absently thought, as he watched the shape of the gnoll slowly slide down the great old master's long black throat, that there was at least one patch of fur that could use another design. He was the natural leader of the Spelljammer's neogi; who else could claim that title?
Master Coh was a natural mage, though of limited magical abilities, and he felt the newcomer's presence behind him before a word could be spoken. "B'Laath'a, speak," he said, and he kepi his eyes studiously upon the great old master.
B'Laath'a approached. In the dim light of the temple, no ornamental pigments were discern. ible on his squat, furred body, save for a line of arcane patterns splashed in bright scarlet, painted along the back of his neck and reaching to a point just above his eyes,
B'Laath'a was an enigma to his fellow neogi: a powerful. spiteful wizard who eschewed the more typical trappings of neogi culture, such as the body paints that proudly signified rank and status among his brethren. He was proud of his muscular, hairy body, pruning it regularly with his long, sharp teeth and feeding off the lice that infested the soft fur of his abdomen. He refused to cover his body with military sigils; his vanity would not allow it. Instead his fur was dyed a permanent, deep black, symbolizing to him all of his secret powers, his hidden strengths-for black was all the colors of the spectrum merged into one.
He held back a snarl of hatred. Coh. Coh was a joke, a pretender, as far as B'Laath'a was concerned, barely worthy of being leader. Coh was nothing more than a militaristic thug.
Now, as to himself,…
B'Laath'a feigned a respectful bow. "Master Coh, squadron attacked a nautiloid, have we. Cloakmaster it is come who has."
Coh turned around quickly. "Cloakmaster? Foretold you the one?"
"Yes, lord. Numbers half dead are. Mighty the cloak is, Destroyed Sketh and slavemeat by magic are."
"So, come the Cloakmaster is. Dead he is?"
B'Laath'a slowly shook his smooth black head. "No, lord. Forces returning speak as we are."
Anger glinted deep in Coh's small eyes. "Dark Times not will neogi harm! Stopped Cloakmeat must be! Ours Cloakmeat will be!"