— Why me? Teldin said again. -Who am I?
— You are the Last Pilot.
— Why?
— You are the Son of the Architect.
— Who? Who am I?
— This is the purpose for which you have sought. It was foreordained for you to find your destiny here, where it began millennia ago. Only you are the Chosen. Only you have the courage and the Helm and the Compass and the need. You are the Last Pilot.
— There have been too many deaths already, Teldin said. — Something else must be done.
— It is our destiny to end and begin again, to renew, to punish, to rejoice, to live.
They were silent. The Cloakmaster thought for a minute, perhaps a year, as the Spelljammer knew time. Then he spoke.
— Tell me. What happens when a Spelljammer dies?
They spoke together then, for a long time,… minutes, perhaps, or years.
Then they were decided, and for the first time since the coming of the Cloakmaster, the Spelljammer sang out joyously, spreading the colors of hope upon the eddies of the flow. The Spelljammer cast forth a seed of being, of pure, magical energies, that shot through Teldin's awareness and across the universe, and he felt it explode against its target, permeating ancient metal with its dormant energies.
Teldin waited until the Spelljammer's song was finished, then he spoke.
— I need one last thing, he said. -For me.
— For… life…
The two agreed as one, for the destiny that Teldin sought was the destiny that had always been.
The Spelljammer sang with a song of Teldin. In Herdspace, a kender, lost in a healing, meditative trance, woke suddenly and heard the song. Music filled with latent energies and inner fires coursed through her, and she answered with a thought that knew no physical boundaries.
The Cloakmaster heard, and he opened his eyes.
Chapter Thirty-One
"… The statues could only be those of the ship's captains. The weapons, the artifacts, the vessels under glass-all must have some purpose that I have not yet fathomed. " The secrets of this accursed ship will soon be mine, I vow. I know the nature of the helms, and I know of the magic that each person here unwittingly breathes. This prison is intolerable! I wonder if any of the items in the Armory are actually helms, and if they can help me escape…"
Na'Shee was the first to react. She leaped upon Stardawn and hurled him to the floor. Her hand went up, ready to smash into the elf s face, but the elf threw a powerful right jab into her jaw.
She was knocked across him. Stardawn scrambled up and jerked the sword from the Cloakmaster's lifeless chest. He angled the blade toward the dark shape of the Fool. "The Cloakmaster is dead, now, Fool!" the elf shouted. "I shall be captain now, as it always should have been!"
He placed his hand on one of the throne's pedestals, then stared down, waiting for the trickle of energy to flow up his arm, bonding him to the Spelljammer.
The Fool laughed.
" You killed the captain, elf" the Fool said. " You killed my plans for the Spelljammer. The helm is gone with the Bonding, and you have only your own, pitiful delusions to live for."
The others in the party pulled out their weapons as the Fool approached. He lifted a hand, and an invisible wave of force sent the warriors sprawling into the walls. Djan's head collided with the wall, and the world went dark around him.
The Fool spun on Stardawn. To the elf lord it was as if the Fool suddenly sailed from the floor to stand before him upon the dais. Two skeletal hands clasped tightly around Stardawn's throat.
The Fool's eyes glimmered brightly, blazing into Stardawn's eyes. He felt the strength wash out of him, felt his legs go limp, and the Fool clasped him high in the air with one hand around his neck.
"Mine…" the Fool said, as though to himself. " You have ruined it all… and you shall pay."
Stardawn's eyes went wide with terror. The dried, brittle skull that was the Fool's face seemed to open in a smile. Star-dawn shuddered in the Fool's grasp, his limbs twitching in an uncontrollable paroxysm of fear. The Fool covered the elfs face, his mouth and nose, with his hand. Two fingertips of bone touched the elfs eyes gently, like a lover's embrace.
Stardawn screamed. He flailed violently in the Fool's cold grasp, and his life force was sucked from his body like smoke, consumed hungrily like a sweet morsel, and the Fool laughed at his meal.
He flung the elfs body to the floor at the warriors' feet. CassaRoc stood uneasily, half-dazed, and the others brought themselves around as the Fool crept toward them.
"All shall pay," the Fool said softly. "All shall pay for stealing my revenge."
The master lich halted suddenly. A sphere of light formed around the warriors, a protective bubble of force. Inside the shield, a glow appeared, and the astral form of Gaye Goldring materialized, burning with a strength the Fool had never conceived. The lich spoke a chant, and the shield shuddered as his spell flickered at its edges, ineffective against the kender's psionic strength.
"How?" he asked.
Inside the shield, the warriors turned away from the Fool and gasped, staring behind him.
Then the Fool felt himself levitated, held in a grip of power that spun him around to face his assailant. His black, shining eyes dimmed in uncomprehending fear.
The Cloakmaster stood before him, holding the Fool in midair with the forces of his new life with the Spelljammer. He willed the Fool closer, and his vision, filled with dream-scapes and worlds beyond imagining, focused on the dead face of the master lich.
"No more," the Cloakmaster said.
The Fool struggled against the forces that held him. He gestured with his hands, and the Cloakmaster was slammed back into his throne by a fist formed from the air. The Fool dropped and jumped off the dais, summoning his strength. He pulled his deathblade from its rotted scabbard. " You have died once already, Cloakmaster. I believe you can die again."
The air swirled between them, coalescing with flares of magic. An aura formed in the air, took shape, and the Cloakmaster reached out and plucked the spell from the air.
The energies flickered in his hand, outlining a blade of power, pulsating with his own life force. He leaped, and the blades met between the two enemies, death and life, sparks flying from their swords.
Inside the shield, the warriors could feel the thick tension in the adytum, the two primal forces battling for supremacy of the Spelljammer. Estriss looked after the unconscious Djan, and the others stood ready, weapons out, to join in the fray.
The Cloakmaster and the Fool were behemoths of raw power, battling around the chamber in a ballet that would only lead to death. Their blades collided and rang, were knocked to carve deep wounds into the Spelljammer's walls. The Fool drew first blood, slipping under the Cloakmaster's guard to slice deep into his forearm. But blood did not flow from the wound, and the Cloakmaster battled on, heedless, seething with power.
Forgotten, alone in the corner, was Cwelanas.
She pulled her iron chains from the floor and wrapped them around one arm. The Fool was concentrating solely on the fight. He had forgotten all about her, and she could finally move.
Teldin fought with the strength and speed of a storm, but the Fool's powers were considerable, and she knew that there was little she could do to help Teldin defeat the creature, unarmed as she was.
But there was something she could take…
The Fool was a lich of some kind, she knew, though she had never seen or heard of a lich quite like this one. She thought back, trying to remember what she knew of their weaknesses, their fears. She looked up, saw the Fool's eyes blazing with evil fire, and she realized what had been bothering her all along.