Russ Howard - The Ultimate Helm

The battlewagon's wildfire spread quickly into the gardens, choking the air with oily black smoke. Teldin felt part of his soul, the Spelljammer's soul, lift then. In a minute, as the Shou tsunami and its plague of locusts, twice as dangerous as the elven flitters, descended upon the Spelljammer, he watched as the smalljammer flew from the wound in the door and accelerated, turning sharply past the great ship's rams and shooting past, flying like a missile out through the gap in the Broken Sphere, and into the endless void.

— Good, Teldin said.

— Good, the Spelljammer said.

And their voices were one.

The Spelljammer increased its speed.

The locusts that fell upon the Spelljammer from the tsunami were all armed with light weapons. They flew through the streets and between towers crazily, their missiles and catapults reaching places that the Spelljammer's crew originally thought were safe. Some locusts were loaded with smoke powder and deliberately rammed into the most heavily fortified towers, committing fiery suicides that were designed to burn out the enemy.

Selura Killcrow, crushed beneath a load of medium boulders shot toward a group of her fighters, died under the onslaught.

Korvok the Fell, who had proudly boasted that he was the foulest man in all the spheres, died as a Shou mage from the tsunami targeted the Tenth Pit with a spell of detonation and the walls themselves exploded with their own latent energy.

Arvanon, the lizard priest of the Spelljammer, died as the wildfire from the wrecked battlewagon filled the gardens with a roiling fireball.

Kaba Danel, the leader of the dracons, died as a wave of arrows from some unseen vessel spilled across the top of the dracon tower and found a target in his chest.

The forgotten captains imprisoned in the Dark Tower- Jokarin, Theorx, and Miark-all died true deaths under the weight of the tower's rubble.

Unholy fires broke out across the Spelljammer. The roof and upper floors of the dwarven citadel exploded in flame as a pair of locusts slammed into it, killing more than a hundred dwarves in a single blow. A squadron of locusts swarmed over the port towers and stormed them with lightning bolts of pointed steel. Ogres died under tons of rubble. The kasharin butchered themselves with their death rays for lack of living targets. The towers of Trade and Thought fell under the locusts' assault, to become nothing but a pile of rubble and shattered bones.

The tsunami itself came on then. Missiles and boulders, iron shot and jettisons, flew through the flow unerringly, piercing the Spelljammer's eyes, shattering the buildings arranged behind the bow, destroying what was left of the dracon tower. The giff tower fired its quadruple bombard, and the top of the tower exploded in a huge gout of orange flame. The phlogiston around it burst into a cascade of fire, and the Cloakmaster knew-felt-that Diamondtip and the giff were gone.

He felt hot anger surge through him as his people died, as the beauty, the wonder, of the Spelljammer's existence was obliterated by the wolves of war. His fury accelerated up his spine, collecting in his tail with the force of a nova.

The tail blazed white with the light of a thousand stars, and a shimmering torpedo of energy shot like a comet straight into the bow of the Shou tsunami. The sky lit up with the purifying light of vengeance.

The Spelljammer sped up and tore through the dust cloud that had been the tsunami. Cold black planets shot past. The ships that had been following disappeared behind him, becoming specks against the ragged outline of the flow. A trail of phlogiston followed the Spelljammer as though the ship were dragging a fiery leash. Teldin reached out with his mind and touched the souls of the ship's survivors. He exerted his will, and the air envelope was filled with a sweet narcotic that brought peace to the ship's remaining inhabitants.

— Understand, he implored, and he showed them what must be done.

And they understood.

Aeyenna was a broken star, still active, but not whole, clearly dying a slow death. It grew in Teldin's eyes, blossomed like a brilliant, shining promise.

He gauged the ship's impossible speed of thought through wildspace, and the distance between he and the stellar remnant. Energy flickered teasingly along his spine and burned hot in the tip of his tail.

— Aeyenna, he sang loudly, the First Sun.

He focused on the remnant burning in wildspace before him.

— Be strong. Be pure.

— Be renewed.

At the last instant, before he expelled the Spelljammer's final, explosive star, Teldin thought — Cwelanas,… I do love you.

Then the globe of energy shot out toward its target inexorably, perfectly, without mercy… into the Spelljammer itself.

The great ship exploded, its rubble and fragments and bodies and the shards of its hull becoming fire, spreading out through the Broken Sphere in a million blazing meteors.

For an instant, against the black wall of the sphere, the ship became a firebird, outlined in light and flame.

But the Spelljammer lived.

Its core, its soul, shone in the black Broken Sphere with the light of a nova.

The soul of the spaakiil merged with the surviving fragment of Aeyenna.

The explosion was exultant, holy.

The Spelljammer's wake of phlogiston ignited immediately, merging in flame with the ship's soul, with the swirling, living matter of the Spelljammer and the star it had killed.

He could feel the great ship's enemies dying instantly, like a candle snuffed out with a single, powerful breath. He felt his own people die, then merge together, like butterflies on the wind. He felt the locusts and their helmsmen burn away, without pain, to transform into pure energy. He felt the foul flesh of B'Laath'a, of the Fool, see true light for the first time, and he hoped their souls knew peace.

His energies exploded outward and vibrated against the wall of the cracked sphere. The energies, merging with the chaotic matter of the flow, reshaped, reformed. They swirled, condensed, creating a new inner shell for the Broken Sphere. Fractures were filled, made whole with the energies from the Spelljammer's sacrifice. With each explosion of matter, with each resultant expulsion of raw energy, the immeasurable gap in the sphere slowly closed.

Cwelanas watched, screaming, with the mental view from her ship's helm. The flow before the smalljamrner was spotted with a large fleet of vessels, all bearing down upon her. She knew she could not defeat them. She knew she could not get into even a single battle, for the smalljamrner had no weapons aboard.

Then, in her mind's eye she saw the Broken Sphere, behind her, light up impossibly from inside. She felt people die in a single blaze of pure white light. She felt the Spelljammer…

No! she thought. TELDIN!

She spun the smalljamrner about and desperately headed for the sphere. She broke out in a cold sweat and felt the cabin waver dizzily around her. CassaRoc and Chaladar shouted at her, but she could not hear them for the thunderous beating in her own ears.

In the instant before she passed out, she heard-felt-a voice, a soul.

Yes, it was Teldin, one last time.

She felt a song, his song, echo through her very being. It was an ancient song, one of fate, of wonder, a song of life.

She halted the smalljammers movement, and the ship sat silently in the flow while her friends gathered around her and she wept.