Grimnosh raised one bone-white brow. “You have my attention.”
“Lionheart.”
A long silence followed K’tide’s triumphant announcement. “Lionheart,” repeated the scro commander, his colorless eyes lighting with interest. “An intriguing notion.”
“In your estimation, destroying the elven high command would be worth a risk?”
“If such a thing can be accomplished, certainly,” Grimnosh agreed pleasantly, “though I’m not certain that your smug tone is worth the risk that accompanies it.” The scro smiled, baring gleaming tusks. “Now, your progress report.”
“The Armistice goblinkin soon will be flight ready,” the spy master assured him. “We are building a small fleet of ships and training the orc priests in the basics of spelljamming.” K’tide’s fleeting sneer spoke of utter contempt for the orcs. “Progress in that matter, you understand, is painfully slow.”
“Indeed,” returned Grimnosh dryly as he leaned back in his chair. “As depleted as scro ranks have become, I sometimes question the wisdom of seeking orc allies on Armistice. Centuries of living underground has hardly improved the strain. That Ubiznik fellow of yours looks like some unholy cross between a dwarf and a goblin. Appalling chap.”
“The orc chief is a strong ally. All the Armistice orcs have great physical strength,” pointed out K’tide. “The gravity on the ice planet is three times that of most worlds. Once the goblin races are spacebound or fighting world-to-world, their strength will give them a distinct advantage in close combat. I’m assuming that you intend to use them as, shall we say —”
“Cannon fodder,” supplied Grimnosh with uncharacteristic bluntness. He glanced down at his hands, grimaced, and held up a thumbnail for closer inspection. “Oh, Nimick,” he said, looking over toward his adjutant, “be a good fellow and put an edge on this claw, won’t you? While you’re at it, you might touch up the engravings as well.”
The greenish scro shot his general a look of pure hatred, but he rose with instant obedience and retrieved a small set of tools from a nearby desk drawer. He dragged a stool over to Grimnosh’s side, and, taking up a tiny chisel, Nimick began to work on the huge white paw, tracing the tiny, elaborate scenes carved onto each of the general’s claws. The murderous expression on the adjutant’s face left no doubt that he was contemplating other, more satisfying uses for the tool. Grimnosh took this in with a bland, urbane smile and turned back to K’tide.
“Your argument has merit. As first-strike troops, the Armistice reinforcements are ideal: strong, motivated, and expendable. Now,” the scro said briskly, “why don’t you tell me a little more about your plans for the good elves of Lionheart?”
Chapter Four
“We do so appreciate passage, Captain Teldin Moore,” Trivit said for what Teldin guessed was the twentieth time. “Our
kaba
certainly is most concerned about our welfare, and once she learns of our rescue I’m sure she will wish to reward you handsomely.”
“That’s not necessary,” Teldin said absently, again.
“Oh, but we insist,” said Trivit. “At the very least, perhaps we can share information.”
Suddenly the dracons had Teldin’s full attention. Seeing this, Chirp’s face brightened and he draped a convivial green arm around Teldin’s shoulders.
“Our clan travels to the secret homeworld of the dracon people,” Chirp confided. “We will cross uncharted crystal spheres and travel seldom-used phlogiston rivers.”
“Our
kaba
is wise,” Trivit added, his soprano tones rounded with hero worship. “Her knowledge surely can aid you in your own quest.”
“What do you know of it?” Teldin demanded. Reflexively he ducked out from under the dracon’s chummy embrace. Chirp and Trivit seemed harmless enough, but he didn’t want a clan of lizard-centaurs joining those who hunted for the cloak.
“You’re bound for the Broken Sphere, are you not?” Chirp asked, clearly surprised by Teldin’s suspicious tone. “If that is supposed to be a secret, it has been badly kept. Your destination is common knowledge around the
Valkyrie.”
“You must meet our
kaba,”
the pale green dracon repeated. “She has been traveling the far corners of the void for nearly three centuries. Surely her knowledge will serve you well.”
Teldin regarded the twin dracons carefully, his eyes darting from one to the other. Their green faces were earnest and open, and Teldin doubted it was in their nature to dissemble. At one time Teldin had considered himself a fairly good judge of character, finding that when he trusted his instinct he seldom went wrong. But since the cloak had come into his hands, life had changed. Telling friend from foe had become difficult, and he had made some near-fatal mistakes. Teldin wasn’t sure he could trust his instincts anymore.
Chirp interrupted Teldin’s thoughts with an excited squeal. Hugging himself in his excitement, the dracon began a heavy-footed little dance of glee. “There! Look over there!” he burbled, pointing toward a distant light. “That’s the
Nightstalker,
or I’m the Dark Spider’s next dinner.”
Teldin squinted out into the darkness of wildspace. There was a light, all right, but something about it was wrong. From this distance, most ships had a faint, whitish glow and looked a bit like faint stars. This one was like no star he’d ever seen. It glowed with a dim but intense purple light. The strange sight drew the other crew members to the railing, and a worried muttering spread across the drakkar. Teldin reached for the brass tube that hung from his belt and raised it to one eye. Seen through the glass, the dracon ship appeared to be a giant, deep purple wasp. It looked very much like an elven battleship.
“Man-o-war,” said Dagmar, confirming Teldin’s suspicions. The first mate had sprinted to the railing during Chirp’s impromptu dance, drawn by fear for her beloved ship. After curbing the dracon’s board-breaking glee, Dagmar stood at the rail by Teldin’s side, gazing out into the void. Worry deepened the lines around her eyes.
“That’s
the dracons’ ship?” she asked.
“So they say,” Teldin replied, studying the ship with growing concern. He’d never heard of any race other than elves flying a man-o-war. Was this some sort of trap, or did dracons legitimately use such ships? Teldin lowered the glass and turned his attention to Chirp and Trivit. Their delight in the coming reunion with their clan was so genuine and childlike that Teldin’s suspicions ebbed. And if their far-traveling clan leader had answers to the riddle of the Broken Sphere, he’d be foolish not to take the opportunity to listen.
Teldin turned to the first mate. “Prepare the longboat and get the dracons on board. I’ll be going with them, but we’ll need another helmsman. Get Klemner,” he directed, naming the minor priest who did double duty as Rozloom’s galley helper. Teldin could easily power the small boat himself, but he did not want to use the cloak’s spelljamming magic in front of the dracon clan.
“Aye, Captain,” Dagmar said reflexively, but her eyes slid involuntarily to Teldin’s cloak. When he’d purchased the drakkar, Teldin had told Dagmar a little about the cloak and the various foes who sought it. Every member of his small crew knew that the voyage held great potential for danger, but Teldin felt he owed his first officer a little more.
While the woman got the dracons aboard the longboat, Teldin shrunk the cloak until it was no more than a silver necklace. Again, he didn’t intend to take unnecessary chances with the cloak.
With Klemner at the helm and the dracons wielding the oars, Teldin was free to sit in the longboat’s bow and observe the man-o-war. He had heard that these ships were grown by the elves, carefully pruned and twisted into their final shape. He had to admit that the result was beautiful. As they drew near, Teldin noticed that the enormous wings – he guessed a wingspan of at least three hundred feet – were of some glittering, translucent substance that resembled crystal. The wings were webbed with ribs, as if they were giant purple leaves.
As soon as the longboat entered the man-o-war’s atmosphere, Chirp took a small silver pipe from the pocket of his leather armor and began to blow busily on the thing. Teldin did not hear a sound, however, and seeing the human’s puzzled expression, Trivit leaned forward on his oars to explain.
“It’s a signal pipe. One can’t be too careful, you know, even when the approaching ship is as small as this boat. Using a code of sorts, Trivit is telling them about our adventure, and he’s also performing advance introductions.”
“How can you tell?” Teldin wondered.
A series of emotions – confusion, abrupt understanding, and finally pity – chased each other across the dracon’s mobile face. “Gracious, I’ve stuck my foot in it this time, haven’t I? Being human and all, I don’t suppose you can hear the pipe,” Trivit observed with deep sympathy.
“Hard astern,” Klemner prompted tersely, bringing the dracons back to the matter at hand. They maneuvered the longboat to the top deck, a narrow, semicircular strip that was suspended above the main deck and dotted with smaller vessels such as elven flitters. Once the longboat was secured to the walkway, the dracons grasped stout ropes and slid down to the main deck below, their muscled arms controlling their descent so that the four-footed impacts were not the thudding crashes Teldin anticipated. He followed them down the rope and looked around for the other dracons. Teldin blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the strange, dim purple light.
“Captain Teldin Moore, may I present to you our
kaba,
Netarza,” said Trivit in formal tones.
Teldin stared in disbelief as the
kaba’s
figure stepped out of the violet shadows. The creature before him was an illithid.
Roughly humanoid in size and stance, the mind flayer had a high, domed head and a lavender hide tinged with red. Four tentacles formed the lower part of its face, and its three-fingered hands ended in curving daws. The creature wore flowing, multilayered robes of deepest purple, which were richly embroidered with metallic threads at the cuffs and trailing hems.
Well met, Teldin Moore,
Netarza said at length.
Teldin jumped, startled by the sound of the illithid’s mental voice. As low-pitched and musical as a night breeze, it was rather feminine-sounding. Teldin knew that illithids did not possess gender, but he’d thought of Estriss as male and assumed that all illithids would sound pretty much the same. He decided it would be easier to consider this one female.
Summoning what remained of his wits, Teldin bowed. “Forgive me. Trivit and Chirp spoke of you as their clan leader, so I was expecting to meet a dracon.”
Clan? That is a fiction to keep the lizard-centaurs happy and cooperative,
Netarza said bluntly. Teldin glanced quickly at Trivit and Chirp; their green faces still held wide, expectant smiles, and Teldin realized that the illithid was directing her thoughts to his mind alone. He wondered what motive lay behind her candor.
Chirp and Trivit are the only two dracons on board,
the illithid captain continued.
We hope to change that in the near future. The
Nightstalker
is a trade ship, Captain Moore, chosen to conceal our identity and our purpose. As you can see, we already have accumulated a variety of merchandise.
Teldin followed the sweeping gesture of the creature’s pale purple hand. The half dozen illithids who gathered behind Netarza were the only ones of their kind in sight, yet the ship bustled with activity. With horror Teldin realized that he had come aboard a mind flayer slave ship. Chirp and Trivit were pawns; he suspected that Netarza allowed the adolescent dracons to keep their minds and memories in the hope that they might lead the illithids to the secret dracon homeworld. Teldin remembered the neogi’s claim that with the cloak they could conquer and enslave whole worlds. It seemed the neogi were not the only monsters to harbor such ambitions, and he had brought the cloak right to the illithids’ doorstep. Teldin cursed himself for coming aboard.
The illithid’s slaves, unmistakably marked by their dull eyes and expressionless faces, went about the business of tending the ship. Elves were the most numerous slaves, which was not surprising: Teldin assumed the illithids had somehow taken over the elven ship and enslaved its crew. There also were several other races: a few humans, a band of halflings, even a pair of ebony-skinned elves who wore glittering black cloaks.
Cloaks!
In his surprise over the dracon leader’s identity, Teldin had not noticed that his own cloak had grown back to its full length. It now was a deep forest green, a color it had never before assumed. Although Teldin had little to say about the cloak’s color, he could control the length at will. The cloak showed itself of its own volition only in times of great danger.
Netarza reclaimed Teldin’s attention by laying a three-fingered hand on his arm.
We are delighted that you’ve come, Teldin Moore. We have much to learn from you, since we spend so little time talking with humans.
Humans just don’t seem to last very long around here,
a black-robed mind flayer observed. There was a touch of evil humor in its mental voice, and something else as well. Its white eyes were fixed on Teldin and its facial tentacles flexed in an unmistakable gesture of anticipation. Teldin’s gut twisted as he realized that
he was
the creature’s first choice for a midwatch snack.
This one is not cattle,
Netarza snapped, her mental words tumbling out quickly. With absolute certainty, Teldin realized that her thoughts were not intended for his mind; somehow the cloak caught and transmuted the telepathic conversation.
None of you will harm the human. Remember our orders: we must bring Teldin Moore and his cloak back to Fake unharmed, his mind untouched. The elder-brain must first harvest the Cloakmaster’s thoughts. After that, the human is of little value and we can sell or sup as we choose.
And you will make that choice, I suppose? You, a subservient minion to a dying elder-brain?
relayed the other mind flayer.
We should take the human now and claim the cloak for use aboard the
Nightstalker.