Then Teldin had no more time to think. The shivak, all the more threatening because it attacked in silence, reached out to take him between its enormous arms. Desperately, Teldin swung out blindly with his sword. One long finger of the shivak's right hand was severed and sent spinning to the floor.
The shivak held Teldin tightly in its iron grasp and lifted his feet from the floor. The sword dropped from his useless hand. The thing's tentacles, perhaps in a dim remembrance of a true mind flayer's need for human brains, twisted hungrily as it brought Teldin's face toward its obscene mouth.
He twisted in the shivak's arms and hammered its thick body with powerful kicks. He grunted with the effort, concentrating on coiling all his strength in his legs. He felt his feet pummel the shivak's stomach, then he managed to twist free one arm. He reached out and grabbed one tentacle from the monster's face and twisted it. The shivak stumbled in pain, then Teldin's other arm was free and he was pushing back on the shivak's head, trying to break its neck.
The thing's grip around his waist tightened. Teldin cried out, then gritted his teeth and pounded his fist repeatedly into the shivak's face. His fist sank once into its flesh as it yielded to Teldin's strength, and then he was free, dropping to the shivak's feet.
Teldin's sword was already in his hand when he leaped again; he swung it into the shivak's side. The blade thunked into the thing's leathery hide and carved a bloodless gouge into its waist. Then Teldin spun and chopped the sword into the shivak's chest and stomach. One gray tentacle went flying as Teldin's sword sliced across its face. Teldin brought his sword high and swung it down in a deadly arc, toward the shivak's heart. The thing moved in a blur and caught the blade between its huge hands. It bent back the polished steel until the sword snapped in half, then it cast the ragged metal shards to the floor and advanced on Teldin, destruction smoldering in its deep-set eyes.
In the entrance hall, Na'Shee fitted a bolt to her crossbow and took aim. CassaRoc held up his hand and pushed down the crossbow so that it pointed to the floor. "No," he said, "Teldin's right. He has to defeat that thing by himself. I don't think anything we could do would help him anyway. It's his fight now."
Stardawn overheard and smiled inwardly. The human had no chance against the shivak, anyone could see that. The monster was huge, a juggernaut of single-minded destruction. Good. He wanted this over, and the less help, the better. Then he could take the cloak from Teldin's bloody, battered body and take command of the Spelljammer himself.
The shivak walloped the Cloakmaster with a stony fist to his stomach. He flew back and hit the throne, stumbling to the floor. He pushed himself up, and the shivak halted, focusing its blank eyes at him fixedly.
Then pain was a living thing, growing like the fires of a star inside Teldin's mind, filling his sight with electric, blinding nothingness. Teldin fell to his knees, gasping. The guardian shivak was more powerful than he had known, imbued not just with the form, but the magical abilities of the being it emulated. The shivak strode toward him as his mind rang with the force of an illithid mind blast, capable of crippling, even killing, normal human victims.
Through clouded vision, he saw his friends at the entrance, watching the battle with fear in their eyes. He knew that the important things-friendship, love, and life-stood before him. He forced himself to his feet and balled his fists. His pain was unimportant. It was their pain, and their possible deaths, that he had to worry about, and he stared at the monstrous shivak as it came for him, ready to depose the would-be captain.
He felt himself grow calm, felt his skin tingle with a hidden reserve of serenity, of inner strength. It was the cloak, he knew; still, it was himself also. The powers they now shared depended on determination, on a zeal for life and preservation over the forces of evil, and the cloak had become merely an amplifier of his own abilities, his own inner fires. Perhaps that was all it had ever been. The shivak swung a mighty fist, and Teldin ducked under the swing to deliver a rapid series of solid punches to the shivak's torso. It brought its balled fists down on Teldin's shoulders, and he dropped to his knees, throbbing. Impulsively, he reached out for the thing's ankle and lifted it off the floor, then stood quickly and shoved the shivak away.
It rolled and hopped up, its speed disguised by its great bulk, and lunged for him. Teldin ran for it and jumped into the air, lashing out with all the power his legs could muster. His feet slammed into the shivak's chest, and the monster went sprawling back into the wall.
Teldin landed on his feet. The shivak stood unsteadily, and Teldin dove in with a left-right-left series of punches to the shivak's ugly face. He pounded his fists into the thing's stomach repeatedly until the shivak doubled over. Then he felt his anger burning within him, his strength cording like steel, and he brought his right hand up in a dizzying blur that slammed into the shivak's weakened jaw and knocked the thing's feet inches off the floor.
The shivak collapsed. It struggled to its knees, lowering its head for a final, spiteful mind blast toward its antagonist.
The Cloakmaster felt it between them then: their energies, flickering like heat waves in the air between them, around them. The power of the cloak was his, and he raised his hands, feeling his skin shimmer with invisible energies, with powers unimaginable.
The shivak tensed, ready to destroy the interloper with the force of its mind; but the Cloakmaster felt the power building, in the air between them, and he channeled his own energies through the cloak and cast out with his mind.
The cloak billowed out, filled with a cold breeze from arcane planes unexplored by human travelers. The lining shimmered, became a deep blue, and was filled with specks of light whirling like galaxies deep within.
The shivak stumbled as the coldness of the ethereal planes j tore from the cloak in winds and gusts that would have felled] trees and toppled houses. It struggled forward, taking one \ uncertain step toward the Cloakmaster, then darkness flooded ^v from the cloak, enveloping the shivak in a cyclone of night.
The shivak howled in fear as the winds of darkness raged around it. It sank to its knees and faced the Cloakmaster, holding out its hands in subservience.
Teldin felt the power building in him, through him. He screamed, feeling his need for the Spelljammer, the end of his quest, become real in his heart. He could not hear his cry over the wail of the cold, empty winds. At once, the stony shivak, frozen by the coldness, the soullessness of the extraplanar winds, exploded with the force of Teldin's being. The shivak shattered into pieces, and jagged chunks of its thick hide hurtled across the adytum, embedding into the floor and walls.
Teldin sank to his knees, the strength flooding out of him in a wave. The shivak's remains collapsed in upon themselves, as though being sucked away from the inside. The stony frag- | ments of its flesh were absorbed into the floor and walls.
On the dais, two round pedestals grew out of the floor at the arms of the throne.
Silence fell within the adytum. CassaRoc and the others were inside, congratulating the Cloakmaster. He stood, and the cloak shrank to its normal size, draping his shoulder as though it had always belonged there.
CassaRoc indicated the throne. "I think that's for you," he said, smiling.
They stepped aside to let Teldin step upon the dais. He stood before the throne and stared down at it. "You better get away," Teldin said. "I don't know what will happen."
They all stepped a few feet away. Stardawn, hesitating, stood directly in front of Teldin, a step ahead of the others. His hand was on the hilt of his sword.