The metal droplets had traveled down the staircase and up the body of the last statue, to collect and transform into a shiny disk at the statue's neck. The statue bore a long cloak and stood proudly among the others, the last in a long line of both heroes and rogues.
The statue was featureless, with only a blank template for a face, but Estriss saw immediately who the statue was to resemble. As he looked around, he realized the others did as well. Even Stardawn seemed moved, frozen as he stared at the raw, unformed stone.
Teldin stared at the statue. "I understand now. I know now why the Spelljammer has called me." He turned to his friends. "I was once told of my destiny by a fal, and I did not believe it. But he was right, and that is why I am here." He took a breath and ran his hand up the statue's cloak. "This is me," he said. "I am to be the next captain of the Spelljammer."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"… The creature was of the stuff that made up the shivaks, but was so fearsome in its aspect that I had but scarce time to examine it. This shivak was immense, a grotesque simulacrum of a beholder, guarding the throne of the legendary adytum against all usurpers. As soon as it spied me, it attacked…" Jokarin the Bold, private log
"The captain?" Chaladar said, incredulous. "How long have you known this?"
"I tried to tell you in the library tower, when I experienced the orb inside the loculus, but the Spelljammer was attacked, and we rushed outside before I could finish."
Estriss said, It is no wonder that all the races want you dead, and the cloak for themselves. The Ultimate Helm will grant any bearer the captaincy of the Spelljammer.
"And the Spelljammer would become the ultimate weapon of destruction," Chaladar reasoned. "Chaos would spread across the spheres like a plague."
"I don't know about that," Teldin said. "The Fool was once the captain, and he was rejected for his actions against life and peace."
"That may be true," Djan interjected, "but the ones who want the Spelljammer have probably never been aboard. They probably know nothing of the Spelljammer's sentience. Even the populace knows nothing of it."
Stardawn was silent throughout the discussion, frozen with anger. He knew all he needed now. He had known for a long time, since he had bought his information from the mad arcane, that a magical item was the key to becoming the Spelljammer's captain. But the item now was Teldin's cloak, and he would let Teldin lead him to the adytum, where he then would take the cloak for himself, and take the captaincy with it.
Teldin turned away from the discussion and opened a great door. A narrow set of ten stairs led down from the Armory to the roof of the Dark Tower. He started down, then waited below for the rest of the party to file out.
Teldin took the group across the roof of the Dark Tower to stand in the shadow of the Spelljammer's mammoth tail. The ship's body was laid out before them as though they were its lords. From here they could see bodies on the decks, the rubble caused by barrages from above. Screams and angry cries came from below, and they heard the twang of coiled springs as ballistae were firecLat the vessels in the flow around the ship.
The Cloakmaster reached out and ran his hand along the tail's broad, purplish surface, searching. His hand found a point at eye level, then Teldin stepped back and motioned for the others to follow. He pointed to a mottled area on the side of the tail. "There," he said, and he stood facing the tail, his arms outstretched.
The amulet at his neck pulsated with crackles of electricity, then cast out a coruscating burst of energy that bathed the tail in its blinding glow. In immediate response, the mottled area of the tail changed color, transforming from a speckled purple into a swirl of red and blue. The surface then twisted impossibly, as though its very flesh were transforming into liquid. It rippled away in a miasmic whirlpool of color, exposing a shifting, formless opening. Within, a staircase twisted organically, like a vein, stretching up into the tail.
Teldin crawled into the opening, crouched inside, and looked around. He moved to let in the others, and they started slowly up the narrow, chaotic staircase in single file. The stairs were translucent, unevenly formed of a chitinous, weblike material that seemed to be one long structure spiral-ing up„through the tail. The silence inside seemed palpable, almost holy, and they went steadily up the staircase without talking, feeling the weight of their search pressing on them.
The staircase opened at a bubblelike landing, an organic ovoid deep inside the Spelljammer's skin. In the wall before them was a roughly circular object. Folds of the Spelljammer's tough flesh pressed together into a doorway that appeared more like a closed wound than an entrance.
Teldin appraised the entrance and willed instinctively. His amulet flared once and shone the sign of the Juna upon the doorway. The folds of flesh peeled back as the doorway slowly dilated open in an invitation to the Cloakmaster.
The warriors gathered behind Teldin and looked inside. The iris opened onto a short entrance hall, then the hall widened into a hollow, organic pocket, the Spelljammer's adytum. Rough-hewn light crystals embedded in the walls flickered on silently. Three rough steps led to an uneven dais, upon which sat a simple, unadorned throne made of the Spelljammer's stony flesh.
This is it, Teldin thought. This is what my quest has been about.
Teldin stared at the throne for a few seconds, then took his first, tremulous step through the opening and stopped just inside the adytum.
A great shape suddenly blocked his view of the dais, and a huge hand slammed hard against the side of his head and sent him reeling across the room.
Teldin had just enough time to sit up on one arm. His head swam from the blow and images came to him, flashes of insight that showed him what he must do. "Stay outside!" he shouted to the others.
CassaRoc yelled at him angrily. "You can't fight this thing alonel"
"No!" Teldin said. "You must stay there! You won't be attacked outside the adytuml This is my fight! You can do nothing for me!"
Then the Cloakmaster was lifted high above the floor and flung across the room. He collided heavily against the throne.
His head swam under the impact, and his side flared with bright pain. He reached up for the arm of the throne and hauled himself off the floor.
His eyes widened.
The guardian that lumbered toward him was the largest shivak he had seen. It had taken the form of an impossibly huge illithid. Where most mind flayers stood no more than seven feet tall, this shivak was fully fifteen. Its gray, leathery hide was stretched tight, like muscle, across its chest and down its powerful arms, and its tentacled face seemed frozen in a horrifying grimace of pure, unreasoning hatred.
This had been the last captain's greatest fear, Teldin realized, and he wondered what form the guardian shivak would take if there were to be a captain after him.
Understanding blossomed in the Cloakmaster's mind. This was the Spelljammer's final test of worthiness. All potential captains had to defeat the guardian of the adytum, a monstrous shivak in the form of the previous captain's worst fear, before they could claim the ship as their own. The last captain's face flickered behind his eyes, and Teldin saw Jokarin the Bold battling a shivak whose form was that of a huge, misshapen beholder. He saw the moment of bonding then, when the shivak was defeated by Jokarin's cunning use of a magical gauntlet and Jokarin took the throne. He saw Jokarin and the Spelljammer become, briefly, as one, and saw the seed from Jokarin's mind enter the consciousness of the Spelljammer and lay dormant, waiting, for the next challenger to come.