Nigel Findley - Into the Void

Teldin had expected to see Barrab again, one way or another-but not like this. The man lay crumpled, blood already pooling beneath him. His whole body seemed to be raw flesh, with hardly a scrap of skin remaining intact. Only his face was untouched. Another death, Teldin thought, another death over this cloak.

Barrab's eyes opened, rolling wildly. The eyes were glazed with agony beyond description, but still, deep within them was a spark of awareness-and of horror greater than any living creature should have to face. The neogi's head flashed down, and the spark was extinguished forever. Prissith Nerro smiled at Rianna. Its thin black tongue licked red gobbets from its teeth. "Thus to all traitors," it hissed. It took another clicking step toward Teldin. "Now, prey," the creature spat. "The cloak."

Teldin backed away-one step, two. He bumped into something. Rianna. She was shaken-he could see that in her face-almost as shaken as he was, but he saw, too, that she was in control of herself. She forced a shaky smile onto her face. The point of her sword pricked into his back. She stepped back from him-farther from the neogi and Barrab's remains- until her sword was at arm's length, its point still against Teldin's flesh. "Sorry, lover," she said quietly. "I told you: a deal's a deal." He saw that her left hand again held spell components: a scrap of fur and something that looked like a tiny rod of amber.

Prissith Nerro clicked forward. Teldin felt as though a scream were bubbling in his throat, fighting for release. He looked around wildly-for escape, for help… for anything that could deliver him from this ultimate horror. The bravos still encircled Estriss. They'd stepped back, instinctively, away from the neogi, away from the monstrous slave and its burden. Their eyes certainly weren't on the illithid, but their swords were steady, ready to end his life if he so much as moved.

Julia? No, the sellsword still held her tightly, his blade poised to slice her throat open. There was no help anywhere.

"The cloak;" Prissith Nerro repeated.

The cloak. The words echoed in Teldin's brain. The cloak. Memories clashed in his brain, so powerful, so intense that the remembering was a physical pain. He closed his eyes in an uncontrollable flinch. The Probe's foredeck-he could see it around him: The swordsman stepping forward, blade swinging to take his life; the flare of power-behind him, around him, within him; skin tingled, bones burned, the feeling of sunlight, of blue-white radiance.

The overwhelming force of the memories diminished, but the thrilling within his bones remained. He opened his eyes.

The lighting was different-brighter, harsher-and every eye in the room was fixed on him. The pricking of Rianna's sword was gone from his back.

It took him a moment to realize that the cloak around his shoulders was glowing with a hard, brittle light.

The neogi reared back, hissing in horror, its tiny eyes half-lidded against the glare. "Control it, meat does," it spat. " Wield it, meat does." Then Teldin saw realization dawn on its face. "No," the creature murmured. "Control it meat does nor. Reflex it is. Nothing more." The neogi smiled thinly and moved forward again. "For giving me fear meat will pay."

As the light bloomed around him, Teldin had expected the same crystal clarity and focus of thought he'd experienced before, but there was no trace of calm within him. Fear still possessed him. He looked around wildly, instinctively. The sellswords had backed away farther; in the knot of figures, only Estriss had held his ground. The bravo holding Julia had lowered his blade a fraction.

Claws clicked. The neogi was so close that Teldin could feel its warm breath on his face, could smell the reek of corruption it exuded. "Prey," it spat once more. Its sinuous neck reached forward and its jaws opened to tear the cloak from around Teldin's shoulders.

No! The mental voice blasted into Teldin's brain with such power that he screamed with the pain of it and clutched his skull with both hands, as if to stop it from exploding. He spun.

Estriss lunged forward. One bravo was reeling backward, mouth open in a silent scream, clawing at his head in unendurable agony. The bizarre, Juna-made knife was in the illithid's red-tinged hand. The curved blade lashed out, and another bravo collapsed, his head almost cleaved from his body. One of the sellswords was quicker to react than his fellows. He lunged, opening a gash in the mind flayer's side, but Estriss was free of the circle. The illithid flung himself forward, at the neogi, at Teldin. His empty hand reached out, an attempt to grab the neogi's throat… or to snatch the cloak for himself. Teldin couldn't be sure which. Prissith Nerro responded instantly. Its head lashed out and its teeth sank into the illithid's neck beneath the writhing tentacles. The two creatures, locked together, staggered toward Teldin. He stepped back, raising his hands to protect himself….

And the power blossomed within him. Fire coursed through his veins, flashed along every nerve. He felt that his skull would rupture, that his eyes would burst from his head. Agony mixed with ecstacy. He howled.

Light burst from his extended hands, a blinding curtain of energy. The air in front of him sizzled.

Illithid and neogi reeled away from the coruscating wall of light. Together they slammed into one of the huge windows. The crystal cracked, then shattered, and glittering fragments were blown outward into the void. Still the creatures were locked together; the neogi's teeth were still sunk into Estriss's flesh, while the mind flayer's facial tentacles were wrapped around Prissith Nerro's skull. The illithid dropped his blade, dug his fingers into the neogi's fleshy throat-more for support, Teldin thought, than from any attempt to further harm the creature. They teetered for a moment on the lip of the shattered window, silhouetted against star-speckled blackness. Then, silently, they plunged from sight.

As suddenly as it had arisen, the power that had flooded through Teldin's body vanished. In its wake was weakness and biting cold. His legs buckled, and he collapsed to his hands and knees on the hard deck. Gray fog clouded his vision. It was all he could do to cling to consciousness. Sounds of chaos surrounded him: the skirl of steel on steel, a man's shout of agony, the umber hulk's frenzied barking and roaring. He simply couldn't bring himself to care. There seemed to be no energy left in his body or mind.

Rianna's voice cut through his exhaustion. "Get back," she shouted. "Back!"

His head might have weighed half a ton for the effort it took to raise it. He moaned with the pain, but at least the exertion seemed to clear the mist from before his eyes.

The umber hulk was waving its arms and dashing its mandibles in obvious rage as it advanced on Rianna… and on Teldin. "Get back," the woman yelled to him. "It'll kill us all."

It was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life, but he managed to force himself to his feet. He shambled back, away from the advancing creature.

Rianna stood her ground. She'd dropped her sword, keeping only the spell components. She held the scrap of fur in one hand, the amber rod in the other. Quickly she rubbed them together, muttering phrases of power under her breath, then she thrust a finger out toward the approaching hulk.

Blue-white lightning leaped from her fingertip, smashed into the creature's bulging chest, and burst out through its back, leaving a blackened, smoking hole. The creature screeched, flailing its arms in paroxysms of agony. It stumbled back, but it didn't fall. The gaze from its four eyes, blood red with hatred, was fixed on Rianna.

Teldin backed farther away. His foot caught on something, almost sending him sprawling. He looked down. It was Estriss's Juna knife. Quickly he scooped it up. Even that little exertion dimmed his vision again, but through pure willpower he fought back the darkness.