The Ultimate Helm

Chapter Fourteen

The maze that was the Spelljammer's marketplace was alive with sounds and exotic aromas, with the pungent tastes of foods and spices from Oerth and Edill, of liquors from Toril and spiced vegetables from Coliar. Merchants shouted for attention, proclaiming that their wares were far better than any other's. The populace chattered, livestock and domestic animals lowed and barked, and from all over the Spelljammer Gaeadrelle Goldring felt the ship's life force pulsing like energy, with the latent powers of a sun.

She walked the deck invisibly, her astral body projected from a sphere that many of the Spelljammer's inhabitants had never heard of, and she took in all the sensations of life that she could discover: the wail of an infant, the taste of charraka from mermen of Conatha, the scent of a perfume from Krynn.

And she smiled at the wonder of the life force that was the Spelljammer, the force that had called to Teldin Moore in answer to his own quest: for adventure, for purpose, for life.

She turned as a cool breeze rushed through her silently, like a dark, psychic wind. It does not belong here, she thought suddenly, and she shivered once, feeling her body in Herd-space shiver in immediate response.

She concentrated, and her psionic senses spread out before her in an invisible web of psionic energy. The cold comes from there, she thought, looking out over the Spelljammer's landing field and toward its bow, and brings with it the taste of darkness.

The feelers of the gargantuan ship stretched out into the phlogiston like twin battering rams. Gaye reached out with her arms and let her psionic senses play over the bow, and she felt the evil wind pass through her like ice, blowing from starboard.

Inside the cavernous tear duct hidden below the ship's starboard eye Gaye discovered one of the unknown entrances to the ship's secret warrens, which ran like veins through the body of the Spelljammer. The breeze, a cold, dark wind tinged with the cold scent of death, sang through the tunnel. She took a step back, assaulted by the unnatural taint to the putrid air, then she forced herself forward into the organic tunnel, down into the ship's body.

Phosphorescent lichen and moonwort grew in patches along the smooth, porous walls, affording just enough pale light for Gaye to explore. Using the foul breeze as a compass, she felt her way through the warrens by following the steadily increasing stench of death. Several times she took wrong turns onto branching paths, then doubled back within seconds, realizing her mistakes.

Deep within the Spelljammer's port wing, Gaye stumbled upon a source of the psychic odor she was following. The chamber she discovered was hollow, like an air bubble, and strewn with gnawed bones and dried, brittle hay. The hay had been piled to form nests, and on seven of these piles lay the corpses of human warriors. The still bodies of black rats lay along the walls and in heaps on the floor. She sensed outward and felt the chilling death force that lay dormant inside the bodies, and she knew that these were the undead, and that this was their hidden lair. The sense of evil was pervasive. It was too much for just a handful of zombies, and she realized that there were many undead hiding in the warrens, far more than anyone had ever guessed.

She wondered who their master was.

As she examined the long-dead humans, the bodies of the rats twitched as one, jerking as though they were waking up. They massed and started toward her. She gasped in fear and jumped back instinctively, thinking they were attacking; then they passed harmlessly through her invisible essence and continued on through the tunnel in a black, slithering mass of undead vermin. She laughed nervously.

Where are they going? she wondered. What call do they answer? She willed herself forward and followed them. Their sharp claws clacked hollowly against the tunnel floor. Their black eyes gleamed with pinpricks of unholy light.

At an intersection of six tunnels beneath the Spelljammer's citadel district, the rats converged with other armies of rats, swarming from the other tunnels. Here, at this junction, the smell of death and coldness grew much stronger. As the undead rats squirmed deeper into the ship, Gaye stayed behind and reached out with her psionic senses. In her mind, one tunnel loomed darker, more claustrophobic than die others. It smelled foully of ancient evil.

Her senses led her to the tunnel closest to her left. The trail of magic was strong inside the tunnel, and the path took her to a curtain of darkness that seemed almost solid. It curled like black smoke at her feet, at the touch of her ethereal hands, and she knew that the chamber beyond was the source of all the undeath in the warrens. The power emanating from within was considerable, tingling coldly against her intangible form. It was a force that seemed to permeate from the very walls, infecting the Spelljammer like a disease.

She stepped through the black wall of mist and gazed in silent terror.

Gaye had never seen an undead creature such as the one before her now. It resembled a lich of some kind, she thought, some form of which she had no knowledge. Its flesh was not rotted, but rather incredibly corrupt, stretched taut, like mummified skin, over its prominent bones. Its eyes were bright stars hidden deep inside shadowed eye sockets, and its black, hooded cloak kept its skeletal body in the concealment of cold, soothing darkness. A heavy ruby amulet, burning with a fierce red fire, hung at its chest. And as she watched it, her psionic senses were overwhelmed, and feelings and images and tastes and smells flooded through her uncontrollably, chilling her with their very touch. She tasted blood on her tongue, the cold sensation of raw evil coursing through her veins. She wanted to scream.

The lich spoke in low tones, an evil hiss that seemed to resonate throughout the organic chamber. His fingers twitched with the clack of dried bones as he wove a spell of forgotten antiquity. The words were ancient, unknown to her; but in them she could feel the ring of history, of chanting voices long stilled, of gods long ago desecrated.

Gaye realized it was the rats he was controlling, and at once she could feel that he could see through the eyes of his vermin.

Then she was seeing through his eyes, the dead eyes of his rats, as well: the dark passageways, the dim light panels on the walls, the guard posted at the entrance. She realized that the rats were winding their way through the Human Collective and into the Tower of Thought.

She saw the wave of rats as they swarmed over the lone human guard, their yellow teeth snapping hungrily into flesh as he stumbled and ran, bleeding, up the stairs, toward Gaye screamed in her mind. Noooooo!

— toward Teldin…

The master lich turned toward her. His spell was a forgotten whisper on his thin, translucent lips. "Ehhh?" he said. "Someone is there…"

With a wave of his hand, an aura of shimmering energy erupted around Gaye, revealing her form to the master lich.

His eyes sparkled with the color of blood. The skull-like face seemed to smile. A guest, he said telepathically. I have a guest. He beckoned once with a skeletal arm, and Gaye was jerked forward, toward him.

Welcome to my palace, he said. My palace. A palace of the dead.. and the undead.

He laughed, and his laughter was the sound of a soul screaming in torment. Gaye's blood went cold. I do not know who you are, he said, but I… I am called… the Fool.